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Home Page > Telluride Area Resources > Local News MV rec center looking for a new homeWeeks after the fizzled land deal between Telluride Ski and Golf and the Mountain Village, elected officials know they want a rec center. They just don't know where to put it. "I think the consensus of the members of the various boards and town council is that we would like to see a rec center built, and that we're going to investigate other potential sites," said Phil Evans, a Mountain Village Town Council and Metropolitan District board member. The last time the various Mountain Village boards met was last month, but Evans said nothing has changed in their thinking. "I haven't heard anything subsequently that would suggest there's a different point of view," he said. The frantic past months in Mountain Village ultimately saw eleventh-hour negotiations between Mountain Village officials and Telski owner Chuck Horning fail, thus yanking the dirt from beneath a project voters had passed by nearly a two-thirds margin on Nov. 1. But the location the center was originally slated to be built - in the Village Core next to the St. Regis Hotel - carried with it burdens of time pressures driven by the St. Regis project. "My personal reaction is that we had run out of time to do any sort of effective planning and management of the process," Evans said. "I think that there was a sense of urgency relative to the other site because it was tied into Lots 50-51 (now the St. Regis project)." Still, he and others are smarting from the loss of a site that may have been better than what's left in a community gradually approaching build-out. "It would have been nice to secure the land and build the rec center on the other site," Evans said. "But it does feel good to make sure that we think of everything we can think of on another site." In the weeks before the deal was terminated, Evans had broached the donation with caution, at one point making a motion at a special meeting to step away from the Telski donation entirely. The land-donation deal died two days later regardless. Evans said the move from the site will offer the Mountain Village a chance to slow the process down, and that a different site may lend itself to more possibly options within the walls. Two benefits to another site, he said, could be a site that had fewer space constrictions and is less expensive to build on. "We may be able to expand the content and the program of the rec center beyond what was ultimately planned for the site that is now lost," he said. Another benefit Evans pointed out was the fact that costs on the old piece of land were not guaranteed, meaning they may have exceeded the $18 million budget in the end. A possible site that's been mentioned at Mountain Village meetings and by Evans on Thursday was Lot 1007, a lot sandwiched between the Mountain Village Firehouse and the Station Village Parking gondola station. Mountain Village Mayor Davis Fansler echoed Evans' sentiment, saying that the Village would continue to pursue a new piece of land for the center. "We're continuing to explore alternatives," he said. The assorted Village boards, Fansler said, are set to attend a planning retreat in February, and would discuss the issue. After that, he said, they plan to seek input from both Telluride and San Miguel County, in addition to requesting input from Telski. "Because I think their input is helpful and needed," he said. But as the evolution of the project continues, Evans said the boards would seek input from voters, too; even though attorneys said that language in the November ballot did not bind officials to a site or a design, Evans, and other board members worry about changing what voters thought they were saying "yes" to. "The more things are changed, Evans said, "The more I would like to personally ensure a public process." |
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