The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Overview and presentations May 10
By Katherine Nettles
Gunnison County has narrowed its field of potential developers for its proposed Whetstone housing project just south of Crested Butte, and next week on Wednesday, May 10, there will be an opportunity for the community to meet the five finalists in a developer open house and presentation.
The Whetstone housing project would add approximately 230 units of varying housing types to a 13-acre parcel along Highway 135 across from Brush Creek Road. Gunnison County commissioners approved the sketch plan in February 2023, and the county’s project team is ready to choose a developer as it works out the details for the next stage (preliminary plan) in the county’s major land use change process that could come later this year.
The May 10 open house will begin with a project overview at 5:30 p.m., followed by presentations from the five finalists: Elmington, Corum, Coburn, Gatesco and Servitas. The finalists will then participate in an open house forum with a Q&A session until 8 p.m.
The Elmington team represents the Elmington Capital Group, LLC, a real estate development group headquartered in Nashville; the Corum team represents Corum Real Estate Group, LLC, a real estate development group based in Denver; the Servitas team represents Servitas Management group, LLC, a workforce and university student housing development group based in Texas; the Coburn team represents Coburn Development, Inc., a design/build firm based in Boulder and Crested Butte which built the Anthracite Place housing development in the town of Crested Butte and the Pitchfork development in the town of Mt. Crested Butte; and the Gatesco team represents Gatesco, Inc., a real estate developer specializing in workforce housing which recently built the Paintbrush development in Gunnison.
There were initially 10 developer applicants of which six were invited to provide more detailed proposals. One of those developers has opted out of the process. The county’s staff on the project team have expressed that they hope to decide on the developer by June of this year.
In April, the county was awarded a $10 million dollar grant from the State of Colorado’s Transformational Affordable Housing Grant (TAHG) program to fund infrastructure for the project, and the county is working with the town of Crested Butte on possible extension of utilities to serve the project.
