The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“I think the biggest increase is in the single family homes”
It doesn’t look like it will be a banner summer as far as construction activity in the Gunnison Valley, but early indications are that it will be busier than last year. Already 60 building permits have been pulled for projects in the unincorporated parts of Gunnison County, compared to 52 at this time last year.
“I think the biggest increase is in the single family homes. To date we’ve got 11 single family starts and last year we only had five at this point,” County Assistant Community Development Director Neal Starkebaum said. “So that’s a substantial change.”
According to the County’s website, single family homes are being built, remodeled or added onto all across the north end of the valley, primarily in Skyland, and Crested Butte South, although Red Mountain Ranch and Trapper’s Crossing are seeing some action as well.
While single family home construction is on the rise, other types of construction are also picking up around the valley, with a lot of County permits pulled for garages, outbuildings, decks and even an outhouse on Bear Ranch.
In Crested Butte, the town could see six new houses pop out of the ground this summer while Mt. Crested Butte expects to see an improvement over last year once the building season starts.
“Building definitely fluctuates year to year,” explained Crested Butte building inspector John Fitzgerald. “It doesn’t look like a steady graph with a constant 45-degree line climbing up the graph every year. Last year’s was pretty slow in town. This is tracking to look more like 2011.”
In 2011, ten new houses were built in town. The peak year according to Fitzgerald was probably 2006. Property values were climbing and houses were being built up and down the valley. That won’t be the case this year.
According to Fitzgerald, the town has already issued three building permits for residential houses. He expects three more to come in soon. There is a commercial project slated to be built as part of the Irwin Eleven building at Fourth and Belleview. A half dozen remodel projects have also been on the boards for the summer in town.
“It’s up from last year which had a lot of remodels, especially remodels of historic houses,” said Fitzgerald.
“We’ll definitely be seeing some activity in town this summer.
In Mt. Crested Butte, community development director Carlos Velado says it’s still too early in the season to see interest in building permits, but if the preseason word around town proves to be accurate it should be an improvement over the last few years.
He said the town has already issued 14 permits for small projects around the community, and is reviewing plans for what could be the first single-family home permit of the season. But so far there’s no new construction permitted for the season.
“Right now we’re still in the in-between, I’m anticipating a better building season than in the past. I’m fielding a lot more calls about how much things would cost, but haven’t received applications for anything yet,” Velado says. “At the very least there is the possibility that we get the same amount of permits but with higher valuations,” Velado says.
The number of building permits traditionally will start picking up in June as summer comes to the mountain.
Commercial building activity is still holding pace with the last few years, Velado says, although renovations have started on the exterior of the Nordic Inn and Crested Butte Mountain Resort plans to resume work in June on the parking garage that was started on the old Manor Lodge lot last November.
“But we’re really a residential community right now, as far as new construction goes. Things are going to have to show sustained improvement probably before we see too much commercial building. On the residential side, I’m hoping for a better season and anticipating that, but don’t have anything to show just yet,” Velado concluded.
