Latest town affordable housing developer narrowed to two

Working to bring costs down on Block 76 by Rainbow Park

By Mark Reaman

Keeping affordable housing affordable is the next phase of the Crested Butte affordable housing proposal for Block 76 by Rainbow Park that includes some triplex lots in the Paradise Park subdivision.

The council heard three presentations from interested developers and the selection committee is now recommending that staff negotiate with two of them, Coburn Partners and Bywater LLC, to see how they can make the proposal more affordable. The hope is to make a final selection of a developer for the project at the next Crested Butte Town Council meeting on October 15.

Crested Butte community development director Michael Yerman told the Town Council at the October 1 meeting that while all three teams had great proposals and could complete the project, they all included too many units priced at the upper end of the income-earning scale. So the selection committee asked the teams to rework their budgets and determined Coburn and Bywater might have the best chance at lowering prices. Bywater had estimated the cost per square foot at $317, Coburn at $320 and the Morrison Group at $361.

So now, according to a memo to the council from Yerman, the staff will enter negotiations “with the intent of finding the lowest possible price points for local buyers, recognizing that the deal must remain profitable for the developer team and that the town potentially has a role in helping to mitigate risk.”

Yerman said the goal is to get the best product at the best price for the $8 million project that would ideally break ground next May.

“When some of the prices approach $400,000, that is too much,” noted Yerman in regard to some of the larger units being proposed.

Mayor Jim Schmidt suggested the committee look at some of the physical units already built by Coburn and Bywater to ensure long-term quality. Yerman said references had been checked for all the development teams and the building department was familiar with their past projects.

“The current building codes make it hard to build crappy buildings now-a-days,” said Yerman. “Finishes and appliances may be different but the building perspective is solid. I feel good where we are. We are now looking at price points. We need to keep working to bring down the costs of some of the units. I’m not sure some of them would sell at the projected price.”

Town manager Dara MacDonald said both developers were responsive to working to get the costs lower. She also said the initial designs will get changed as they work their way through BOZAR (the Board of Zoning and Architectural Review) this winter.

Roxana Alvarez and Heli Mae Peterson live in the neighborhood and they expressed concerns with too much density. Noting that when a soccer game or event in the Rainbow Park Pavilion takes place, parking is already very congested, they wanted to make sure that was taken into consideration during the review process.

The staff hopes to have a potential contract for the council to consider awarding the project to a developer at the October 15 Town Council meeting.