New Mt. CB parking garage opening only for overflow traffic

Timing forced construction, not need

In case you were wondering, there’s a good reason a barrier was blocking the entrance to the new parking garage in Mt. Crested Butte on the Manor Lodge site last weekend: the garage isn’t open.

Although Crested Butte Mountain Resort built the first two levels of the new parking structure in time for the winter season, it will be opened up only when the demand for parking requires it.
According to the town’s community development director Carlos Velado, the garage was built for parking that will someday serve the not-yet-built Mountaineer Square North.
And while the groundbreaking for the base area expansion might be years in the future, Crested Butte Mountain Resort didn’t have much choice in starting the parking garage when it did.
An arrangement between two CBMR companies—Crested Butte Commercial Properties and the Grand Lodge Crested Butte Commercial Condominium Association—allows for a six-year window to use funds set aside in an escrow account for the parking garage. This is year six and the resort had to move on the project or lose the money that had been set aside.
Now that the foundational levels of the garage have been built, in part, with the escrow money, the resort will wait for more development in Mountaineer Square North to complete the project.
Until then, the garage will be open only when all the other lots are full.