75 Hotel Rooms, 56 Condos

The Telluride Watch
Published: 6/30/06
By Seth Cagin

A proposal for a large luxury hotel easily won conceptual approval from the Mountain Village Town Council this week, largely because the application sought only minor zoning variances and has drawn minimal public criticism. Located on Country Club Dr. below The Peaks, alongside the first fairway of the Telluride Golf Club course, project coordinator Greg Hanshaw said on Wednesday that a five-star operator will be named shortly. 

The project will break ground this winter, Hanshaw added, provided that final town approvals are granted in time.

The new hotel is one of several major hotel-condominium developments either underway or proposed in Mountain Village. They include the $200 million St. Regis Hotel under construction at the top of the chondola in the Mountain Village Center – a project that, in sharp contrast to this one, was hotly controversial and took more than a year to win approvals. Also in contrast to the newly proposed hotel, the St. Regis sought major variances in exchange for major community benefits, and is located on a relatively small parcel hemmed in by other large buildings.

The Mountain Village Design Review Board recommended conceptual approval of the new hotel application on March 23. Council’s approval on Tuesday – the second of five steps in the approvals process for a planned unit development in Mountain Village – came with conditions requiring the applicant to address neighbors’ concerns about traffic impacts and staff concern about the public nature of a portion of the project that would be visible from the Colo. Hwy. 145 Spur and the Valley Floor.

The architects who helped present the application – Hill, Glazier of Palo Alto and JG Johnson of Denver – introduced themselves to council as the designers of a number of luxury hotels, including the Ritz-Carlton at Bachelor Gulch in Beaver Creek, the Four Seasons Vail, which is currently under construction, and the remodel of the St. Regis Hotel in Aspen.

In introducing himself to council, owner/developer Aaron Honigman told council that it is his philosophy to develop properties “zoned for what we want to do.”  He emphasized that the application before council therefore sought only modest variances.

However, Honigman said, “There are small and limited easement requirements and density issues we could not get around. We think they are extremely limited and minimal in terms of scope of project.  But nonetheless they are there.”

The proposed hotel will occupy several separate buildings on either side of Country Club Dr. Collectively they will house 56 condominiums, 75 hotel rooms, 18 employee dormitory units, two employee apartments, and resort amenities including a spa, a restaurant, a café, a swimming pool, and retail spaces.  A pedestrian bridge will cross Country Club Dr., one of the community benefits cited in the application in exchange for the requested variances.  Other benefits include amenities at trailheads, including public restrooms, a Nordic Skiing/Mountain Biking center, and a sidewalk along Country Club Drive to Mountain Village Blvd.

Council heard concerns expressed by neighbors seeking greater setbacks, objecting to rezoning that increased density, and expressing concern about traffic impacts.

John Horn, a resident of Country Club Dr., and himself a frequent applicant before Mountain Village governing boards, focused on traffic.

“Traffic is the elephant in the living room with this project,” Horn said, and he asked specifically if the road as engineered could handle it.  Neither delivery trucks nor snow storage are provided for, he added.

Country Club Dr. resident Jackie Gardner said she agreed with Horn, and added that construction impacts could be problematic as well, given the character of the road and the fact that the project is planned for both sides of it.

Honigman and Hanshaw cited their successful mitigation of construction impacts of their six-unit condominium project, Courcheval, now underway on Mountain Village Blvd. as evidence of their ability to manage construction.

Architect Jim Johnson argued that the plans seek to protect neighbors and manage both deliveries and traffic.

And, added project consultant Mollye Wolahan, “We will do a traffic circulation study as we move forward.”

In working through the issues, members of council generally voiced strong support of the project.

Perhaps the two major issues that council grappled with were the encroachment on the ridgeline by a small portion of the hotel and the necessity of rezoning a single-family lot to hotel zoning.

The zoning permits the structure to encroach on the ridgeline, provided that the portion of it visible from the Valley Floor is public in nature and meets design guidelines to minimize the visual impact. While hotel rooms are expressly defined in the zoning as public in nature, it is not clear whether hotel rooms that may be purchased as condominiums are. Council asked for further clarification from the applicant as to how the relevant portions of the property will be maintained as public areas.

Council also expressed wariness of setting a precedent by upzoning the single-family lot that is one of the six lots that will be merged if the PUD wins final approval, to hotel zoning. Most of the lot in question would be dedicated to open space, with only 18 percent of it covered by a portion of a building. Council decreed that the portion of the structure on the former single-family lot may occupy no more square footage than the single-family home that could have been built on the lot under the previous zoning.

“I’m excited we have the opportunity to look at something of this quality with this level of integrity,” said Councilmember Jonathan Sweet. But Sweet also expressed the sense of council when he added, “I do think the issues [the neighbors have] raised are significant.”

Council’s conceptual approval of the project, with direction to address those issues, was unanimous.

Reprinted with permission from The Telluride Watch.