Pagosa Springs – Down by the San Juan River and its gurgling, sulfurous hot springs, Ross Aragon crosses boulder- strewn grassy ground covered with deer tracks to get a closer look at the future.
Here, literally a stone’s throw from the heart of downtown Pagosa Springs and its panoramic view of picture-perfect peaks, the town’s mayor of 28 years offers with a sweep of his arm an empty field that he says is about to create jobs and attract droves of tourists.
Aragon, whose re-election is at stake Tuesday, is betting that this site next to The Springs Resort is the ideal place for dozens of new townhouses and condos.
“When we get this done, Pagosa Springs is going to become a major tourist destination,” Aragon says.
Not everyone is enthusiastic about the new development bearing down like a buzz saw on this old logging town of roughly 1,700 residents and surrounding Archuleta County.
The county, population 12,000, has the third-fastest growth rate in the state and is attracting a growing list of millionaire and billionaire developers.
Many residents, including the mayor, admit they are scared of sharply escalating property values and of losing the small-town ways.
It’s a story that, while not as old as the hills, is as familiar – repeated in Colorado mountain burg after burg since the 1970s.
“We were one of the last places discovered in Colorado,” real estate broker Jim Smith says. “Business had been poking along steady for a long time. But since January 2004, people have been walking through the door buying stuff right and left.”
Irvine, Calif.-based National Recreational Properties Inc. bought a few hundred lots just outside town at Pagosa Lakes, tripled prices from $10,000 to $30,000 and launched a national campaign that helped keep second homes as much as 60 percent of the housing stock, according to several brokers’ estimates.
“Pagosa Springs is an outstanding value for people who want an affordable paradise,” real estate agent West Davies says. “You can still buy a 35-acre parcel with water, electricity and unbelievable views for less than $250,000. In the next couple of years, you won’t be able to touch that.”
Former Silicon Valley developer David J. Brown has spent more than $12 million in the past few years to buy a dozen downtown parcels totaling about 8 acres.
Brown has been vague about his plans except to assure town officials that his upscale commercial projects will help revitalize downtown.
But Brown raised eyebrows by concurrently buying parcels, funding a planning study and serving as co-chairman of the Community Vision Council, an advisory group working on a downtown master plan.
Trying to guide the development juggernaut, town officials are working feverishly on that plan, as well as the first-ever townwide comprehensive plan and an update of land-use codes.
Town Manager Mark Garcia says these planning tools should be ready in a month or two, along with quadrupled impact fees on developers and a decision about whether to continue a moratorium on big-box stores other than supermarkets.
“It’s been nuts the last three years,” Garcia says.
Developers are proposing large subdivisions east, west and south of town.
Like Pagosa Springs officials, county planners are busy developing zoning rules after decades of pell-mell subdividing of ranchlands.
And in the mountains up U.S. 160, Texas billionaire Billy Joe “Red” McCombs is seeking government approvals for a 10,000-person village adjacent to rustic Wolf Creek Ski Area, where a big day is 5,000 skiers.
Pagosa Springs residents say they want to preserve the character of downtown, but locals don’t entirely agree on what that character is.
Unlike the mountain towns built by mining wealth in the late 1800s, Pagosa Springs was by turns a cavalry fort, ranching center and sawmill town.
Its denizens rarely employed the grand Victorian architecture characteristic of historic Durango, Silverton and Telluride.
Old Pagosa is variously described as a quaint collection of Western “frontier- like” buildings or as a hodgepodge of facades in brick, stucco, wooden plank and log.
Mike Heraty satellite realty office in downtown tells the story of most local entrepreneurship. It was once a house, a hair salon, photography studio, law office, massage parlor and so on.
“One failure after another,” he says, laughing.
The town has come full circle.
Early American Indian inhabitants came to “Pagosah” for the healing waters. And for tourists, lynchpins of the new economy, the springs are the town’s most popular amenity.
But one of the most divisive proposals is about the town focal point, specifically the large parking lot that hangs over the hot springs. Locals call it The Overlook, and town consultants want to transform it into a park and relocate the vehicles.
“I don’t want to lose one parking spot,” says Bob Goodman, the 49-year-old owner of Goodman’s Department Store across the street. The store has been in his family and in the same location for 105 years. “I know nothing stays the same, but I don’t want to see Pagosa Springs forget what made this town.
“We’re not used to quick change.”
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
