Frisco, Breckenridge, Keystone ready to bring Mardi Gras to the High Country

#Summit County #Colorado

Summit Daily News

Summit Daily Link

Get out the beads, masks and colorful costumes because Summit County is celebrating Mardi Gras this weekend and Tuesday with town-sponsored events in Summit County.

Breckenridge

Each year, Breckenridge takes some cues from New Orleans, and visitors clad in masks, boas and beads respond to the call by taking over the ski town on Fat Tuesday to commemorate the snow carnival season.

The traditional Breckenridge Mardi Gras Parade down Main Street kicks off at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday with the Mardi Gras King and Queen, Alan Bullock and Amy Russo.

The parade dead-ends at the Riverwalk Center, 150 W. Adams Ave., where there will be a free concert from 5-7 p.m. featuring the Lowdown Brass Band.

Additionally, people are welcome to indulge themselves at the Paulaner Salvator Festival, a German "strong beer" festival featuring brews from Paulaner. The first 100 people in the door will receive a free stein.

Also, it's not too late to register a float for the parade. Cash prizes will be awarded for first-, second- and third-place entries.

Go to GoBreck.com and click on the Feb. 13 Mardi Gras link to find the registration forms and more details about the event.

Frisco

On Saturday, Feb. 10, the town of Frisco will host two events: the 5th Annual Mardi Gras 4Paws dog parade/street party and the 2nd Annual Frisco Freeze Fat Bike Race. Mardi Gras 4Paws will be from 2–4:30 pm on 2ndAvenue and Frisco Main Street, and the Frisco Freeze Fat Bike Race will start at 3 p.m. at the Frisco Nordic Center.

Mardi Gras 4Paws will once again benefit the League for Animals and People of the Summit (L.A.P.S.). Mardi Gras 4Paws is a costumed dog parade along the sidewalks of Frisco's Main Street inspired by New Orleans's Mystic Krew of Barkus parade. Frisco's Mardi Gras 4Paws will feature a "yappy" hour street party on 2nd Avenue between Main Street and the Granite Street alley with gumbo and beignets from Lost Cajun Restaurant, hot beverages from Abbey's Coffee, beer from New Belgium Brewing and wine from Cupcake Vineyards, along with a dog parade. New this year- Fire on Demand will provide fire pits to keep "yappy" hour participants warm.

Online pre-registration is $15 for the 1st dog and includes dog treats, a Mardi Gras doggie bandana, beads and a token for either one bowl of gumbo or a drink. Each additional family dog is only $5, and additional dog registrations do not include the token or bandana. Day of registration is $20 for the 1st dog and $5 for additional dogs. Registration and more information are available at TownofFrisco.com.

Mardi Gras 4Paws Schedule:

• 2 p.m.- Registration begins and dogs and their humans converge on 2nd Avenue between Main Street and the alley
• 2–4:30 p.m.- "Yappy" hour street party will begin on 2nd Avenue with beer, wine, gumbo and "doggie brew".
• 3:15 p.m.- The canine parade will start and travel down Frisco Main Street from 2nd Avenue to 7th Avenue along the sidewalk and back up the other side of the street for full canine viewing.
• 3:45 p.m.- Canine costume contest will begin and prizes will be awarded for dogs in costumes for a King and Queen, along with a full court of winners. There is also a "Belinda's Best" category to commemorate the late Belinda Griffin, who inspired this event.

Keystone

River Run Village at Keystone is hosting a Mardi Gras Party on Fat Tuesday, Feb. 13 from 2:30–5 p.m.  Fat Tuesday in Keystone Resort is fit for all ages and includes free live music, giant games, a cash bar, special guest – kid's celebrity chef Nicholas Hornbostel and Summit County's best gumbo prepared by local and Denver chefs inspired by the official cuisine of the great State of Louisiana.  Whether you prefer Cajun or Creole style you won't go hungry as restaurants from Keystone and beyond put their pride on the line and whip up their best batches of gumbo to be judged in both the Professional and People's Choice categories.  Official judges will rank their 1st and 2nd choices in the seafood/exotic and chicken/sausage classifications where over $1,600 in prize money will be up for grabs. The Keystone Neighbourhood Company will also be giving out a Team Spirit award meaning gumbo participants are encouraged to dress up their booths and put together their best Mardi Gras costumes.  Better yet bragging rights and a little cash will be awarded in the People's Choice category and will be determined by the Mardi Gras party guests themselves.  Unlimited gumbo tasting bracelets for adults are just $12 in advance or $15 at the gate. New this year, kid's bracelets are $5 in advance and $8 at the gate. Kid's will get their own Kids Choice ticket to vote for their favorite gumbo alongside our special guest Nicholas Hornbostel from Kids Food Network.

For tickets go to: https://keystonemardigras2017.eventbrite.com

 It wouldn't be a Mardi Gras party without some tunes and for 2018 the live concert is in full effect with Chris Daniels and the Kings taking the stage at 3:30 p.m. Chris Daniels and the Kings has been taking the stage for 33 years and will be delivering the rhythm while the party-goers dance away or kick back with a Keystone Kane, our version of the hurricane, from the bar. The Keystone Mardi Gras Party combines food, music and family into one grand Fat Tuesday celebration while doing its part to bring a little Southern hospitality to the mountains. 

Schedule of Mardi Gras Events at Keystone:

• 2:30pm – 3:30pm: DJ spinnin' tunes
• 2:30pm – 5:00pm: Gumbo Tasting – $12 Adult, $5 Kid in advance  / $15 Adult, $8 Kid at the gate
• 3:00pm – 3:30pm: Professional and People's Choice Judging
• 3:30pm – 5:00pm: FREE Live Music by Chris Daniels and the Kings
• 5:00pm –  Gumbo Competition Winners Announced

Overview of Cash Prizes and Awards: 

• 1st Place Gumbo Cook-Off:
  • Chicken/Sausage Category – $400.00
  • Seafood/Exotic Category – $400.00
• 2nd Place Gumbo Cook-Off
  • Chicken/Sausage Category – $200.00
  • Seafood/Exotic Category – $200.00

• People' Choice Best Gumbo – $250.00
• Keystone Team Spirit Award – Best Booth – $150.00

River rafters in Colorado could see reduced flows this summer

#Colorado

Summit Daily News

Summit Daily Link

 River-runners and irrigators will want to monitor the progress of spring runoff closely this year after the Denver office of the Natural Resources Conservation Service projected Wednesday that streamflows in the combined Yampa and White rivers this summer are likely to be in the range of 50 to 69 percent of average.

The forecast is based on snowpack in the region as of Feb. 1, so there’s still a chance for the snowpack to grow. But Colorado Snow Survey Supervisor Brian Domonkos said it would take a significant reversal in the weather patterns to turn snowpack levels around.

“With nearly one-third of the typical winter season remaining, a major shift in weather patterns will be needed to make significant improvements,” Domonkos said in a news release.

And Northwest Colorado is in better shape than the southern part of the state.

“Nearly one-quarter of the almost 200 snow-monitoring sites across our network recorded snowpack at the lowest or second-lowest levels on record,” he said.

The Yampa/White basin snowpack is 70 percent of median and just 55 percent of last winter’s snowpack as of Feb. 1, according to the Conservation Service. But in the San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado, snowpack is just 34 percent of median. It’s an indication that flows in the Four Corners region will be scant this summer, including on the San Juan River, a popular river trip destination for families in Steamboat Springs.

Domonkos reported that landmarks in the Southern Colorado Rockies like Wolf Creek Pass and Red Mountain Pass in the San Juans typically have 5 to 6 feet of standing snow in early February but currently report only 2 to 3 feet.

“What’s more concerning is the considerable number of mid- to lower-elevation monitoring sites that have little to no snow,” he said.

Close to Steamboat, the Tower snow measuring site, at 10,500 feet elevation, typically has some of the deepest snow in the state. The snow there on Feb. 4 was 59 inches deep with snow water content that represented 66 percent of median for the date. It’s the high elevation snow in locations like Buffalo Pass that feeds streams that support the Yampa River well into July.

Near the bottom of Buffalo Pass, the Dry Lake measuring site showed a snow depth of 36 inches with a snow water equivalent that was 72 percent of median.

One of the river drainages in the state projected to have stronger flows this summer is in North Park, just across the Continental Divide and the Park Range from Steamboat Springs, where the mountain snowpack that feeds the North Platte River is a respectable 82 percent of median.

The price of dense urban development in Breckenridge is about to go up

#Breckenridge #Colorado

Adjacent to One Ski Hill Place at the base Breckenridge
 Ski Resort’s Peak 8, the Vail Resorts’ administration building
overlooks Ski Hill Road in Breckenridge. The building
 could be demolished to make room for a new luxury
 hotel, but a push to raise the price of transferrabl
e density rights — more commonly
 known as “TDRs” — will likely raise
 the price of the project by about $2 million.

Summit Daily Link

Breckenridge Town Council adopted a joint resolution Tuesday night that would dramatically spike the price of transferable density rights sold in the Upper Blue Basin, provided it's also approved by the county.

If the price increase is enacted, as it's expected to be, the hike could raise the cost of a major hotel project being pursued in Breckenridge right now by more than $2 million.

At the Jan. 23 work session, staff and council agreed the price of density rights was woefully low and floated options for resetting the pricing structure.

At the end of discussions, council opted to move forward with setting the price of a transferable density right based on the median price of all backcountry property sales since 2000, the year the program was established.

Most basically, the resolution jumps the cost for density rights in the Blue River Basin from $47,800 to $82,500 apiece, while also instituting a process for updating the price on an annual basis.

On Jan. 23, council members said they could easily go higher, but it was important to remain in line with the county. They also took comfort in knowing the price would be adjusted on a regular basis.

Before Tuesday night's vote, assistant director of community development Mark Truckey told council that town staff would monitor the increases to make sure they're tracking the way the town intends.

The Upper Blue Basin Transferable Density Rights Program was originally created to protect Summit County's open space by allowing the town and county to buy up land in the backcountry, strip density rights from it and then move that density to other parcels where larger developments may be more appropriate, for a price.

The program mainly works because a market exists for additional density with the county and town having policies prohibiting up-zoning — or adding more units of density to land — without density rights.

As a result, the program in the Upper Blue Basin has been credited as the most successful in the county, protecting more than 1,100 acres of open space and generating about $3 million for more open-space purchases since 2000, according to the county's statistics.

Tuesday night's vote was unanimous, but Councilman Mike Dudick recused himself before it was cast, as he has previously done with all recent discussions regarding the price of transferable density rights, also known as TDRs.

The recusal comes as Dudick's company, Breckenridge Grand Vacations, is chasing a proposed four-star hotel at the base of Peak 8 at Breckenridge Ski Resort in a partnership with a Miami-based development firm, Lionheart Capital, on land owned by Vail Resorts.

Because the developers hope to secure up to 62 additional TDRs to accommodate a number of wholly owned condos that would come with the hotel, something the developers say must happen to make the project financially viable, they will have to pay a far greater price than they otherwise would have if price of TDRs wasn't in flux.

"I think candidly that our application accelerated the process to increase the pricing," Dudick said over the phone Wednesday. "I don't really think someone could objectively look at it any other way."

He explained that discussions regarding price of TDRs have been ongoing and well-documented for over a year now. However, "when the (hotel) application came up, they said, 'We got to get this right away,'" he said.

Overall, if the deal is approved by council, the spike in TDR prices will likely cost the hotel developers more than $2 million above the almost $3 million they would already have had to pay under the current price.

Dudick said he's not getting too bent out of shape over it, but he thinks one of the great ironies is that by adding $2 million to a project's costs, most developers will make up for that increase by upping the square footage of their projects.

"I don't like it, but I accept it," Dudick said of the price hike, adding that "the good thing about it is, even with the price increase, that money is going to get split 50/50 between the county and the town to purchase more open space.

"While it costs me more as a developer, it also provides a tremendous benefit to the community to go out and purchase more open space," he continued. "That's a good thing so I can see both sides of that."

The joint resolution must still be adopted by the Summit County Commissioners. The county is expected to act on the joint resolution Feb. 13, at which time the new price could go into effect.

This is the end (and the beginning): Ride The Rockies bike tour to start, finish in Breckenridge

#Breckenridge #Colorado

Summit Daily News

Summit Daily Link

Breckenridge will serve as both the beginning and the end of The Denver Post's annual 418-mile Ride The Rockies Bicycle Tour.

The 2018 route will take the shape of a loop over a six-day stretch, beginning with the Ride The Rockies Bike Expo on Saturday, June 9, in Breckenridge and ending with finish line festivities on Friday, June 15.

In a press release, new tour director Deirdre Moynihan said she hopes a loop tour near the Interstate-70 corridor will make the event more accessible to riders when on and off their bikes.

"We believe this route will entice our veteran cyclists, as well as draw in new folks," Moynihan added.

The 2018 route will take the shape of a loop over a six-day stretch, beginning with the Ride The Rockies Bike Expo on Saturday, June 9 in Breckenridge and ending with finish line festivities on Friday, June 15.

Ride The Rockies will also host its pre-tour "Prologue Experience" from Friday, June 8, through Sunday, June 10. The Prologue Experience route will take riders from Breckenridge, up and over Hoosier Pass and down through Alma before circling counter-clockwise back north at Fairplay. And the course will be completed via an unpaved route up and over Boreas Pass and back to Breckenridge.

The Prologue Experience provides participants with the opportunity to ride, wine and dine with cycling celebrities — including Olympic legends Mara Abbott and Kristin Armstrong — in Breckenridge. The tour will include a lunch and wine tasting in the middle of South Park City, while the return ride and an accompanying dinner is optional. Gravel bikes will be provided for the unpaved path back over Boreas Pass.

Highlight local High Country landmarks for the main event will include Fremont Pass, Tennessee Pass, State Bridge, Rabbit Ears Pass and Ute Pass.

The course will begin by departing Breckenridge north on state Highway 9, turning southwest onto I-70 West before continuing over Fremont Pass to Leadville. The course will then turn back north ascending over Battle Mountain before ending the first day in Avon.

Day 2 will end in Steamboat Springs while a 48-mile day 3 will circle counter-clockwise back to Steamboat Springs. Day 4 will take cyclists over Rabbit Ears and Muddy passes before ending at Grand Lake on the border of Rocky Mountain National Park. Day 5's 32-mile course will conclude in Winter Park.

Then the sixth and final day of the tour will depart Winter Park for an 87-mile bike ride up to Granby, over through Hot Sulphur Springs and south, to the east of the William Forks Mountains. The cyclists will cut through the mountains and reenter Summit County for the first time since day 1 via Ute Pass, the tour concludes by heading south on state Highway 9 before traversing through Silverthorne, Dillon and Frisco to the finish line in Breckenridge.

The total elevation gain for the tour is 25,935 vertical feet, with the highest elevations being reached both on days 1 and 6 in Summit County.

Also this year for the first time, on June 12, Ride The Rockies will open up the tour to outside participants for the Steamboat Springs one-day loop.

Registration is now open for the event, which is the biggest fundraiser for The Denver Post Community Foundation. Tour sign-up is on a first come, first-served basis, as the tour said in the press release it is moving away from its former lottery process.

The 33rd annual event will admit 2,000 cyclists and registration prices are tiered, with the first 500 applicants registering at a Tier 1 price level. The event's website currently lists admission for an individual rider at $575, while the cost for the one-day Steamboat Springs ride is $90. Other registration options for individuals include the tour and Prologue Experience for $2,800 and the Prologue Experience on its own for $2,300.

As part of the tour, cyclists can either camp or stay at hotels in the different host communities the tour stops in. Ride The Rockies also says that local businesses in each host community benefit from an estimated $250,000 in economic impact each day of the tour. The Denver Post Community Fund will also award a $5,000 grant to a nonprofit organization in each host town. To learn more about Ride the Rockies, you can visit RideTheRockies.com.

Airbnb in Colorado: Breckenridge ranks No. 2 behind Denver

#Breckenridge #Colorado

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Summit Daily Link

Recently released data from America's leading short-term rental website shows their prevalence in Summit County far exceeds what's happening across the High Country, or even the state, for that matter.

According to statistics provided by Airbnb.com, Breckenridge saw 89,000 guest arrivals for its short-term rentals through the company's website last year at the same time in-town renters made $16.5 million off those stays.

Those figures included only the properties in town limits but were more than enough to rank Breckenridge second among all Colorado communities, landing the Summit County ski town behind only Denver in both measures.

Statewide, short-term rentals through Airbnb made a combined $183 million for the property owners in 2017 with 1.2 million guest arrivals, representing a 68 percent increase compared to the number of arrivals in 2016.

Not surprisingly, Denver had the highest figures with Airbnb reporting 325,000 visits and $51 million generated for the hosts there last year. The state capital boasts a population of almost 700,000 while Breckenridge has less than 5,000 full-time residents.

Still, Breckenridge remained far above every other major city across the state, including Colorado Springs, Boulder and Fort Collins. In fact, only Denver, Boulder and Breckenridge eclipsed $10 million in terms of income generated for renters, and Breckenridge's properties listed on Airbnb actually beat out Boulder's by $2.4 million last year.

Based on the numbers, Breckenridge's short-term rentals simply blow other Colorado destinations away with almost three times more visits than Steamboat Springs, the next-highest mountain town, and more than four times as many as Vail in 2017.

Outside of Summit County, Steamboat Springs and Vail were the only other Colorado ski towns to make Airbnb's top 10 list.

Inside Summit County, however, two other destinations — Keystone and Silverthorne — both made the top 10, giving Summit the No. 2, 7 and 8 slots on Airbnb's list of the most prevalent locations for short-term rentals in Colorado.

"We obviously want to encourage travel and tourism to the different cities across Colorado," said Jasmine Mora, a spokeswoman for Airbnb, who said she sees many other benefits of Airbnb rentals, in addition to driving tourism.

Despite some negative connotations surrounding burgeoning industry, Mora said that guests who book through websites like Airbnb.com or VRBO.com are more likely to leave the rental property, get out in the community and patronize local businesses, like grocery stores or restaurants instead of ordering room service.

The spokeswoman also said that many of Airbnb's hosts depend on the additional income their rental generates and could struggle to survive in a place like Breckenridge without it.

As for who's renting out the units, Airbnb reports that 16 percent of its hosts are 60 years or older and 59 percent of them are women. They also get to keep 97 percent of the earnings, according to the company, which tags the typical earnings for a host in Colorado at $8,100.

Mora said Airbnb releases the information about the number of visits and the monies they generate as part of a continued effort to be transparent while Airbnb remains committed to working with local jurisdictions on things like making sure proper taxes are being remitted.

It's not immediately clear exactly how many short-term rentals exist right now in Summit County, but there are a few ways to get a pretty good idea of what's currently out there.

A recent audit conducted by Harmari by LTAS Technologies for the town of Breckenridge identified 3,526 short-term rental units in town. Also, a recent inventory of short-term rental properties in unincorporated areas of Summit County, also performed by the same company, found more than 4,800 listings in unincorporated Summit County with the highest concentrations of short-term rentals being in Breckenridge, Keystone, Silverthorne and Copper Mountain.

According to the inventory, the average price of a short-term rental in unincorporated Summit County can vary depending on the location, ranging from $435 a night in the area around Blue River and just outside Breckenridge town limits to $163 a night east of Silverthorne.

Behind the 3,500 units identified by Breckenridge, the largest number of short-term rentals in the unincorporated parts of Summit County were discovered to be at Keystone (1,438 listings) and the area around the town of Blue River or just outside of Breckenridge (1,382 listings).

Resorts are naturally some of the most sought after destinations for short-term rentals, and Airbnb's figures ranking Utah's short-term rental markets were similar to Colorado in that Park City, Utah, finished second behind only Salt Lake City in both the number of visits and host income.

With 61,000 visits last year generating $16.8 million, Park City is more in line with what's happening in Breckenridge than any of the other resorts in state.

Winter storm to continue in Summit County, from 6-12 inches expected by Tuesday morning

#Summit County #Colorado

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Summit Daily Link

Summit County woke up to whiteout conditions on Monday morning as a winter storm swept through the area and is expected to continue into Tuesday. New snow accumulations through Tuesday morning are expected to range from 6 to 12 inches with local amounts up to 15 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

The Hazardous Weather Outlook from the National Weather Service warns of gusty winds above timberline that will produce areas of blowing snow and reduced visibilities. West winds 25 to 35 mph will occur with gusts up to 60 mph above timberline. People traveling in the mountains should be prepared for winter travel and slick road conditions today and tonight.

The Dillon Dam Road is currently closed due to adverse weather conditions.

Meteorologist Joel Gratz from OpenSnow.com wrote in his Monday morning forecast that snow should be lighter during the day, with “perhaps another band setting up around the I-70 corridor during the day or afternoon.”

“Then a second and stronger wave should bring snow to I-70, the central and the southern mountains on Monday night through Tuesday morning with additional snow showers on Tuesday,” he writes. Tuesday morning is Gratz’s pick for best powder day.

Ski resort totals overnight from this storm:

Arapahoe Basin – 4"Loveland – 3" 
Breckenridge – 1"
Copper – 1"Keystone – 1"

Colorado snowpack is historically low, but Summit County is faring better than most

#Colorado

Special to the Summit Daily

Summit Daily Link

Colorado's snowpack levels are roughly 60 percent of their historical average, and the southern reaches of the state remain in dire straits with only several months left in the snow season. Overall, it's shaping up to be the state's worst winter since 2012.

Water managers aren't quite panicking yet, thanks to healthy reservoir levels that should be able to provide a backstop against drought. But if things don't turn around soon, some of the many water jurisdictions fed by Colorado's high-elevation snowpack could be in for tough times.

"There are some parts of the state that are in dire situations," said Jim Pokrandt, director of community affairs for the Colorado River District, a state water policy agency. "I think it would be wise for water providers to look around the corner. We could still get up to 100 percent, but people should certainly start thinking about drought planning."

As dismal scenes from Crested Butte and Telluride can attest, the southern mountains are faring the worst. The latest data show two river basins in the southwest corner of the state — the Upper Rio Grande and the San Miguel, Dolores, Animas and San Juan — at 34 and 36 percent of average snowpack, respectively. The Gunnison basin to the north isn't doing much better at 47 percent of historical snow-water equivalent.

The Upper Colorado River basin, which includes Summit County, is currently at a respectable 75 percent of average, owing partly to a La Niña affect that has been pushing storms northward.

A closer look indicates that despite underwhelming snow accumulations at local ski areas, Summit County has been having an unusually strong winter. Measurements by Denver Water show that snowpack on the mountains that drains into Dillon Reservoir is roughly 105 percent of its historical average.

"We're faring a little bit better than the rest of the state, and in some areas like Summit County, we're actually doing better than we typically would be this time of year," said Travis Thompson, a Denver Water spokesman.

In all areas of the Upper Colorado River watershed where the agency collects water, snowpack is at 97 percent of normal, and its sites in the Upper South Platte watershed are at 91 percent.

Summit enjoyed a light dusting on Thursday that was expected to continue periodically into the weekend. Weak storms like that have characterized the 2017-18 winter season so far, a stark contrast to the season before, when a series of massive storms pummeled the county in December and January and built most of the winter's total snowpack.

"We're inching up and every little bit counts — a couple inches today, a couple inches tomorrow," Pokrandt said. "Everybody's looking for a 2-foot dump for a lot of reasons, but we'll take what we can get. We're inching ahead. … This year we just haven't gotten that pineapple express effect that comes across dumping and dumping."

Light snow showers could linger in Summit until Wednesday, when they will taper off and give way to dry weather through the weekend, according to meteorologist Joel Gratz of OpenSnow.com.

"Some models are hinting that a rogue storm will buck the trend of the storm track staying to our north and east and bring snow to Colorado on or around February 10th," he wrote in a Friday morning blog post. "This is a low chance, but still a chance."

Forecasting beyond a couple of weeks is extremely difficult, but weather watchers tentatively predict that the overall dry trend will continue.

"A winter drought is developing across Utah and Colorado, with very low precipitation and poor snowpack conditions accompanied by very warm temperatures and unusually high evaporative demand," the latest briefing from the federal Western Water Assessment reads. "It is unlikely that the snowpack will recover to average conditions by spring, and very low spring-summer runoff is increasingly likely, especially in southern Utah and southwestern Colorado."

Still, things can change, and there's enough time left for Colorado to bounce back from its lackluster snow year. One or two particularly big storms could completely erase months of low accumulations in the data.

"The snowpack measurements as of the beginning of March would be when things would really start getting serious," Pokrandt said. "So there's still some time, and at least in (Summit) we're not that far from average. Maybe if we get to 90 percent snowpack this year we could call that victory. But if things really fall off and we get another prolonged dry period and thawing, then that'll really get people's attention."

How does Denver rank against Amazon HQ2 competition?

#Colorado

Summit Daily Link

Now that Denver has been named one of the 20 potential locations where Amazon could choose to build its second headquarters, it's time to see where the Mile High City stands — or falls short.

Using available data from market research, government reports and more, The Denver Post pulled out features that Amazon said were important in its original request for proposals in September.

Many sources document only U.S. cities, so the lone outsider, Toronto, is not part of many of the lists. Also, a few reports combine metropolitan areas into one, so northern Virginia and Maryland's Montgomery County are included in the Washington data.

This isn't a story to say where the best city for Amazon HQ2 should be but one that gives all 20 finalists a better sense of where Denver ranks by comparison. And from the data, Denver rarely ranks in the top half.

Jeff Neumann, The Denver Post

Amazon picked 20 regions, including Denver, to further explore building a second headquarters. Here's the competition.

Read the full story on The Denver Post website, click here

Summit County breaks records with 852 building permits representing $244 million

#Summit County #Colorado

Summit Daily Photo

Summit Daily Link

The number of building permits issued by Summit County went through the roof last year.

As a result, the county set a record for the number of inspections performed in 2017 at the same time the number of building permits issued spiked to the highest levels since at least the Great Recession.

According to the Summit County Building Inspection Department's 2017 summary report, the number of permits issued by the department skyrocketed to 852 in 2017 after the county issued 710 in 2016 and 644 in 2015.

The number of inspections also soared in 2017, going from 13,978 in 2016 to 16,923 in 2017. That was almost 3,000 more inspections than the county did in 2016, which was more than double the growth rate from 2015 to 2016, when the number of inspections rose by 1,395.

Meanwhile, the total value represented by all those permits issued last year jumped from $152 million in 2016 to $244 million in 2017, a staggering increase compared to previous spikes.

"It's fast and furious," said Matt Mueller, development director at Summit Sky Ranch, a planned 240-unit neighborhood in Silverthorne that features a range of homes at different price points.

Mueller said the high number of permits and rapid building pace is likely a product of demand, and it shows just how successful his project, and others across Summit County, have been.

"We can be somewhat of a machine at times," Mueller said of his company. "We're organized on-site, we have a plan and we're chopping away as we go, trying to get as many homes done as we can."

Putting it into context, the $244 million valuation of building permits issued last year was 246 percent of the estimated valuation in 2015 ($99 million) and four times greater than the valuation of the permits issued in 2011.

"I think that the building boom that we're currently experiencing shows that the recession is truly in our rear-view mirror, and we expect (the growth) to continue for the foreseeable future," said Scott Hoffman, chief building official for Summit County.

Describing the growth in real terms, Hoffman recalled not too long ago when the county's building inspectors would do 70 inspections on their busiest day in the summer. Now, they can handle 70 on a Wednesday without hardly even thinking about it, he said, like they did earlier this week.

Not complaining about the additional work, Hoffman credited the county commissioners and upper-county management for giving the inspectors the resources they need to run "like a well-oiled machine" and bang out up to 120 inspections on a "huge day" with everyone pitching in.

Instead, Hoffman pointed to Summit County's building community — everyone from the architects, engineers and designers to the general contractors, electricians, plumbers and "the concrete guy" — as the ones who've actually shouldered the county's building boom.

"Each piece is an important part of the machine," Hoffman said of the players. "We're blessed to work with the best group of builders, I think, in the nation, but especially in the mountain-resort niche."

The properties they're building range from multimillion-dollar luxury homes to condos and major workforce housing developments. They've also undertaken a number of commercial builds, but the county attributes much of Summit County's growth to a resurgence of condominium projects and investments at the ski resorts.

Still, Hoffman said the permits issued by the county run the gamut, covering everything from new construction, remodels and rebuilds to smaller additions and scrape-offs.

There was also a large increase in new starts and spec homes, according to county building officials, whose inspections cover everything from improvements at the ski resorts to mining properties.

"There are a lot of really neat projects we get to work on," Hoffman said, adding that he has high hopes for the mixed-use Fourth Street Crossing project for downtown Silverthorne and large-scale workforce housing projects going up in Silverthorne, Keystone and Breckenridge.

"The community is going through a great growth cycle with a positive effect," Hoffman said matter-of-factly, adding that the builders all have to eat lunch, drive trucks and do countless other things that greatly expand the economic impact the building community has on the local economy.

"This growth creates a ripple effect of economic opportunities for workers in the local real estate business, management services, restaurants and many other sectors," Hoffman wrote in the summary.

One of the downsides to the torrid growth, however, is the upward pressure it puts on housing prices, which remains a major challenge for the local workforce, according to the report.

Looking ahead, 2018 is expected to be another big year for the builders.

Chris Renner, owner of Pinnacle Mountain Homes, said his company usually builds about 10 custom-built homes in a year but has already started 2018 with more work under construction than they did all of last year.

Renner said the number of custom-built homes starting construction last year actually fell slightly — dipping from about 45 in a year to 37 in 2017 based on what he can see — while spec homes more than made up the difference.

Still, he's fielding more requests for work than he can accept.

"Before we start any homes (this year), we already have more work on the books than we did all of last year," he said. "And we expect to start 10 more homes next year."

Dillon Valley residents, growing fed up with unsafe streets, pushing to make neighborhood walkable

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When Emily Mulica and her husband moved into their Dillon Valley home in 2011, one of the first things they noticed was how fast people drove through their new neighborhood.

On one occasion, while Mulica was pregnant with her second child and walking with her first in a stroller, a car flew by and nearly hit her, prompting her to shout at the driver to slow down. (That didn't go over very well with him.)

"That really kind of lit a fire in me that's been fuming over the years," she said. "I should be able to walk around in my neighborhood safely, especially in a place like Dillon Valley where there are so many families with kids."

This year, with both of her kids now attending Dillon Valley Elementary, Mulica has enough time on her hands to try and make her dense neighborhood of winding roads and no sidewalks safer.

She's not alone. On Tuesday evening, two-dozen neighbors, parents and local officials gathered at Dillon Valley Elementary to discuss first steps. They hope to build on the momentum of a coming remodel of the elementary school and recent pedestrian improvements near the elementary school in Summit Cove, another residential area that's notoriously difficult to walk through.

"I think that if people have somewhere to walk then more people will be out walking, and if more people are walking, people will drive slower and it will be safer for everyone," Mulica told the group. "It's going to take all of us working together, knocking our heads against it until we get some change happening here."

COUNTY LANDS, TOWN NEEDS

Summit Cove and Dillon Valley have both become major enclaves for local families in ever-pricier Summit County. But since both areas are unincorporated and effectively governed by the county, pedestrian infrastructure has been slow to catch up with demand.

"We are a changing county, as you know," assistant county manager Thad Noll told the group. "We started out as a little Wild West ski village, but we're not that anymore. We are an urban zone, and we have to become more urban."

The problem, of course, is money. County governments generally don't invest in raised sidewalks on their roads, which are often remote and have limited foot traffic. Sidewalks are expensive to build and maintain, especially in places like Summit, with its 10-month winters and heavy snowfall.

But as Dillon Valley and Summit Cove have become increasingly dense, with many residents who need to walk to bus stops, jobs and schools, the county has had to change the way it thinks about the roads that pass through them.

"It's hard because we have these unincorporated neighborhoods but they have town needs," Mulica said, reached by phone Wednesday.

Mulica's group, Walkable Dillon Valley, is trying to rally residents around the cause, propagating a survey to gather ideas for how to make the neighborhood safer. It's gotten some help from the nonprofit Family and Intercultural Resource Center's Family Leadership Training Institute, a 20-week program that helps people affect change in their communities.

FIRC executive director and Dillon Valley resident Tamara Drangstveit, incidentally, was at Tuesday's meeting.

"I walked my dog in the dark this morning at 5:30, and I couldn't see the bike paths because there's so much ice and snow," she said. "Cars can't see them, either. It's not a particularly safe environment for me, let alone for my kids — or my dog."

A LONG ROAD

The Safe Routes to School project in Summit Cove, completed in October, provides a vision of what could be done in Dillon Valley — at least as a start. The third installment of a five-phase project in the neighborhood, it added bicycle and pedestrian lanes around Summit Cove Elementary.

The new lanes were carved out by widening existing roads, providing a walking and biking surface without the added expense of a raised sidewalk. The county recently added bike lane striping to some of Dillon Valley's busiest roads, but like in Summit Cove, it can be hard to tell in the winter.

"I feel like what we're hearing from residents is they want more substantial improvements to Dillon Valley, especially around the vicinity of Dillon Valley Elementary," county public works director Tom Gosiorowski said.

On the money front, Noll said that getting a plan together is a necessary first step. Funding will come when there are clear options on the table and public will behind them.

"I don't want this to sound all peaches and cream — it's a long road," he said. "However, it is worth it in your community, and we're going to make this place walkable."

Walkable Dillon Valley's general vision is to get cars to slow down and establish more walking routes. The latter would ideally include a safer way to walk across Highway 6 to downtown Dillon.

"I feel like we're well-poised for a kind of Renaissance (in Dillon Valley)," Mulica said. "We're close to so many trails, downtown Dillon, the farmer's market, the Dillon Amphitheatre — we just need a way to connect it all."