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| Summit Daily |
The Dillon Town Council continued its recent push for further development and economic revitalization at last Tuesday's regular meeting, approving a new development plan for the Dillon Urgent Care and Residences.
The incoming facility — to be located at 956 W. Anemone Trail, near the Dillon Dam Brewery — will serve as a mixed-use facility meant to address community needs in workforce housing and affordable, extended-hours medical care. The development will also tear down and replace the existing building on the property, providing a new piece of mountain architecture on an otherwise run-down patch of land.
"I think the current lot would be considered to be blighted," said Kerstin Anderson, marketing and communications director for Dillon. "As we hear all the time in the community options for healthcare, especially discounted options and alternative hours, are seen as a big need in the community. And I think we believe that more options and competition is good for an industry. This will help provide more lower-cost options."
The keystone piece of the project is a single-story, 5,000 square foot mixed-use urgent care and imaging medical facility, which includes three deed restricted residential units for its employees. The medical office is anticipated to bring affordable alternatives to emergency room services to Dillon and the surrounding areas.
The office will provide advanced imaging that includes CAT scans, ultrasound X-ray and MRI services at substantially lower costs than the current alternatives in the area.
In addition to cheaper and more convenient medical care, the facility will also boast extended hours and will be open 365 days a year, regardless of weather.
The three deed restricted apartments will serve as dedicated workforce housing in perpetuity. They will be offered first to employees of the clinic, then to residents working more than 30 hours a week in Dillon, and finally to the greater Summit County workforce.
Attached to the mixed-use building will be a three-story, nearly 25,000-square-foot multi-family residential building. Dubbed The Residences at Anemone Ridge, the adjoined structure will offer a total of 18 new units for sale: six three-bedroom and 12 two-bedroom units between 1,200 and 1,500 square feet. The residences will be built above a parking garage designed to retain the traffic from both residents and visitors to the medical office.
The Residences will also serve as a means to subsidize the costs of the urgent care facility for the owner, Dr. Nizar Assi, a long-time Summit County resident.
The urgent care center is one of two new medical facilities likely to make its way to Dillon in the coming years. In August a coalition of health care providers — Vail-Summit Orthopaedics, the Steadman Clinic, Vail Health and Howard Head Sports Medicine — announced their plans to build an 80-100,000-square-foot facility for orthopedic surgery.
Additionally, the facility could also include an urgent care center and physical therapy services. Though still in its infancy, the facility is tentatively pegged for a five-acre parcel adjacent to the Dillon Ridge Marketplace.
Despite some similarities, the approval of the Dillon Urgent Care and Residences isn't expected to have an adverse affect on the potential of a new orthopedic surgery center.
"We're still anticipating that they'll submit an application," said Anderson, referring to the Dillon Ridge partners. "I think they're presenting something pretty specialized in terms of orthopedic surgery, and their urgent care will have more of a traditional care model. I think that providing these services gives people more options, and keeps people here locally instead of in Denver because competition forces lower prices. It will also provide more high paying jobs, which is good for our community's resiliency."
For the town, the move also represents a tangible shift in its philosophy surrounding development. After years of essentially no new private construction in the area, major projects seem to be popping up with regularity. Aside from the urgent care center and attached residences, the town is also anticipating the arrival of the Hilton Homewood Suites next year and the Uptown 240 condominium complex in 2020.
"The new project has a level of architectural design that is going to really clean up that blighted lot," said Anderson. "It will also help to bring more density, whether it be locals or just heads in beds, that really helps to support our businesses."
