The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Second phase of Nordic Inn renovations almost complete
In a 6-1 vote, the Mt. Crested Butte Town Council agreed to vacate the cul-de-sac on Treasury Road at the request of developer John Johnson, who owns all of the adjacent property, including the Nordic Inn.
Johnson, along with partner Ken Stone, attended the vote Tuesday, May 21 and thanked the council for supporting their vision, despite some real concern from neighboring residential property owners.
By vacating the .46-acre cul-de-sac, the town is moving the property from a public trust into private hands and the outcome is yet to be determined. Johnson told the council he didn’t yet have a master plan, called a Planned Unit Development (PUD), for the land and wouldn’t have one until the vacation was complete.
“Quite frankly, we’re not going to start that process before we have a base point to start with,” he told the council in March.
Johnson’s position caused some concern among residents living on Treasury Road in the neighborhood next to the property, since they didn’t know how the land would be used once the vacation was complete. Some saw the vacation as giving a valuable piece of land to a developer and getting little in return.
In the final comment submitted to the council by a neighboring property owner, Heida Baker asked, “What was the deciding factor to give away this valuable property free and clear at this time and what are the advantages for the city in doing so?”
According to the vacation’s proponents, the newly private cul-de-sac would provide the town with additional property tax revenue and could lead to other types of revenue if the development is successful.
Currently the land is zoned for single-family and multi-family residential use, but a PUD process could reshape the property’s zoning into anything the developer and the town staff and council could agree to.
Through the vacation request, Johnson’s approach to the negotiation put some of the council members off, but it worked, with all but councilman Danny D’Aquila voting in favor of the vacation and, presumably, the development it will bring to town.
In explaining his vote against the vacation, D’Aquila commended Johnson for using local contractors to do the renovation work on the Nordic Inn, but said he was sticking with the neighbors.
“Although I like the effort to use all local help, I still support the neighborhood and their position. I would like to see some kind of plan before I agree with this proposal,” D’Aquila said. “So I’m going to support the neighborhood and say no.”
Johnson said he and Stone had already invested $300,000 renovating the interior of the Nordic Inn over the winter and are in the process of putting a quarter-million dollars into the second phase of renovation on the outside of the building this summer.
“As you’ve probably seen driving by, we’ve already started renovating the exterior and the second phase,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately all of those pickups are not guests. They’re a financial commitment on our part. They’re contractors from this community who continue to work for us. So we’re excited about what the future holds for us.”
The vacation took effect immediately, although nothing will visibly change on the property until a plan is presented, and Johnson said work on the Nordic Inn should be completed by the end of this month.
