Briefs Mt. Crested Butte

August sales tax up
Mt. Crested Butte businesses collected almost $18,000 more sales tax in August than the town was expecting. In a sign that things are turning out better than they looked a year ago, the total comes in 17.5 percent above the amount budgeted by staff. This year’s summer months in Mt. Crested Butte brought in 6.9 percent more in sales tax than June, July and August of 2011.
Year to date, however, the town is still 2.4 percent, or about $27,000, below budget and 4.7 percent below the actual sales tax collections by August 2011.

Wheels turning to get former Colorado Boarder space open as Sweet Spot
Local restaurateur Kyleena Graceffa and her business partner, Eric Gowan, are putting the finishing touches on their bid to open Sweet Spot, an arcade and tavern planned for the former Colorado Boarder space in Mountaineer Square. On Tuesday, October 16, the Mt. Crested Butte council put their enthusiastic support behind a liquor license for what Graceffa described as a “vintage 1930s cocktail bar” vibe with an arcade and a family atmosphere. A “soft opening” was held Tuesday, November 13.
Graceffa told the council Sweet Spot should have six menu items available to customers from The Avalanche, Momo, Lobar, Third Bowl and django’s for those who need a bite to eat. If all goes according to plan, Sweet Spot will open its doors by mid-November.

Pauls Corp. walks away from Wildhorse
The five unfinished foundations in Mt. Crested Butte’s Wildhorse subdivision are again ownerless after the Pauls Corporation, which acquired the properties at the beginning of this year, cashed in its chips.
The town of Mt. Crested Butte was considering what to do with the foundations, which were both unsafe and an eyesore for neighbors, just as the Pauls Corp. was taking the property over from its previous owner. Along with the foundations, the Pauls Corp. got 19 vacant lots and three finished homes.
After selling two of the homes, for $665,000 and $975,000, and placing the third under contract, the Pauls Corp. made its way for the door, leaving Midwest Bank, which acquired Community Banks of Colorado last year, as the property’s sole owner.
Community development director Carlos Velado told the council in a report Midwest Bank is “actively trying to sell the unfinished foundations and other obtained Wildhorse assets in order to complete the buildings as soon as possible.”

Council adopts building fees
The Mt. Crested Butte Town Council gave a second and final reading to an ordinance establishing a revised set of building fees for new residential construction. The new fees were revised to adequately protect the town from unfinished development that can cause safety concerns and have adverse visual impacts on the town, such as the one in Wildhorse.
After finding that the town had been undervaluing new building projects, and thereby collecting too little in permit fees to cover the expense of reclaiming a building site or completing the parts of the project visible from the outside, Velado started looking for ways to revise the fee schedule.
The result is a new system of fees that charges 3 percent for projects valued between $50,000 and $750,000, 2.5 percent for projects valued between $750,000 and $2 million, 1.5 percent for projects valued from $2 million to $3 million, and 1 percent for projects worth more than $1 million.