January 2005 |
| Breckenridge
News Breckenridge Ski Resort employees have donned yellow jackets as part of a program to become more visible while they monitor speeding skiers and snowboarders on the mountain. It is part of a new safety program being implemented at all four Vail Resorts’ Colorado ski areas, with the full program planned for unveiling during Skier Safety Week, Jan. 15-21, 2005. Ski passes can be confiscated for fast or reckless skiing. Breckenridge and Keystone pull from 20-50 passes per year and say it is the best deterrent. Slow and family designated runs are now part of every resort and the majority of enforcement occurs here, so if you see the yellow “Slow” sign take it easy. December 5-12 saw the 17 th annual Hartford Ski Spectacular come to Breckenridge. The event was put on by Disabled Sports USA, an organization founded by Vietnam Veterans promoting sports as a way of enhancing rehabilitation after a disability occurs. Over 600 athletes attended for a week of race camps, seminars, races and social events. Thirty soldiers injured in Afghanistan and Iraq were special guests at the event. December also saw Breckenridge celebrate twenty years of snowboarding by kicking off the competitive season by hosting the Chevrolet US Snowboard Grand Prix. Five days of the best competitors in the business brought tens of thousands to town. Events covered the full spectrum with Parallel Giant Slalom, Halfpipe and Rail competition all for a purse of over $120,000. One of the unique events was the rail-jam under the lights at the Riverwalk Center. More events are planned this season with the finale being the Mountain Dew Vertical Challenge Finals on April 2 nd . Many more events are part of the Spring Massive in April. Real all about it on The Schedule of Events. http://thealtitudenews.com/Schedule.html. The Roybal Corp. of Aspen outlined to the Breckenridge Town Council its plans for the Breckenridge Discovery Center, formerly the Bailey Building, located next to Washington Park on Main St. The town purchased the building last spring and intends to use it as an information center about the town’s history. The town has budgeted $2.55 million for the renovation of the building. This is just part of a Main Street Renaissance that will see the next few months involve intense planning, meetings and research leading up to actual changes taking place as soon as next summer. An open house is scheduled for February 4 to discuss progress. Also part of the changes involves development of an Arts District stretching from the Backstage Theatre down Washington Avenue to the Riverwalk Center. The district would feature galleries, interactive studios, workshops and performing arts venues. More information on everything going on this summer is at: http://thealtitudenews.com/Schedule.html, as well as: http://www.bestoftherockies.com. |
| WHY
I LIVE HERE… The Summit foundation gave out $484,489 in second-half 2004 grants to local non-profit organizations. Total awards for 2004 reached $949,994, an increase of 17.65% over 2003. Since 1986 the foundation has awarded $6.8 million. Although the bulk goes to Summit County organizations, $19,000 was given out of county. The foundation awarded 48 nonprofits in this round and recognized its five, ten and twenty year donors. Special thanks went out to the local ski areas as well as Winter Park, Vail and Beaver Creek for many years of support. More information: http://www.summitfoundation.org/. Due to new Environmental Protection Agency clean air specifications, the Summit Stage will begin phasing out biodiesel buses. The solution appears to be using hybrids. Already in use in some cities, hybrids have not yet been tested at high altitude. Hybrids also cost nearly twice as much as regular diesels. As more come into use they should fall more into line with conventional pricing. Great Outdoors Colorado announced Wednesday that it will give the town of Silverthorne $1.67 million for the “Blue River Experience,” the project to create parks, trails and open spaces on and around the Blue River. The money will be applied to the town’s $3 million improvement project and will reduce the time required to complete it. The county is teaming with the Summit Recycling Project on a facility at the landfill that will capture for recycling a large portion of material bound for disposal. The new building will be designed and constructed to conform to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards. The US Green Building Council establishes these, and this will be the first building in the county so designated. |
| SCHOOL
NEWS… The board of trustees of Colorado Mountain College Monday unanimously approved plans to build a new, consolidated facility in Frisco and will phase out the existing college buildings in downtown Dillon and downtown Breckenridge. The tentative timeline for the project is to break ground in 2007, with completion in 2008 or 2009. The school board has picked a company, Slaterpaull Architects of Denver, to handle the $22.7 million renovation of the middle school and the new vocational wing of the high school. They were selected because of their extensive work with renovating schools while in session. The work will begin in spring of ’06. Other projects on the drawing include renovations to the Frisco Elementary School and redesigning the old Silverthorne Elementary into a new adult learning center. Our elementary schools have begun implementing the Primary Years Program of the International Baccalaureate program. The IB program has been in the middle and high school for several years and the success has led the school system to finalize incorporation throughout. The process takes three to five years to get to full speed with extensive planning, training and visits to IB schools. The program teaches students to see their part in the global community and build character as well as academic skills. More can be found at: http://www.ibo.org. Colorado School Accountability Report: Excellent: Breckenridge and Summit Cove Elementarys High: Dillon Valley, Frisco, Upper Blue Elementarys, Summit Middle and High Schools. |
| SNOW
NEWS KEEPS GETTING DEEPER! Gene and Terese Dayton, owners of the Breckenridge Nordic center and their staff are restoring two backcountry cabins, the Hallelujah Hut on the Nordic Center’s Siberia Loop at the base of Peak 7 and Josie’s Cabin in Cucumber Gulch on the Blue Loop. The Hallelujah Hut was moved from the Swan River valley and was the hut Dayton used for his first Nordic skiing business. It was an assay office in mining days and a purported $600 million worth of gold passed through its doors. Restoration on the hut has been ongoing for 18 months and they have invested $30,000. The huts will not serve overnight guests but will be used for warm-up and perhaps private parties. The Landon Sawyer Center for freestyle skiing has moved out of Keystone Resort after negotiations between the Landon Sawyer Foundation and Keystone failed to resolve differences over insurance coverage. Apparently Keystone did not feel that the coverage was adequate, nor did they agree with the proposed practice of trampoline practice without the use of harnesses. The Foundation felt the use of harnesses would detract from the level of training, Keystone says the US Ski Team uses harnesses in all their trampoline work. This is a huge disappointment after two years of planning and implementation. The Sawyer Foundation is looking for another location for the center. In case you missed it the World Cup Downhill race at Beaver Creek last month was a record setting day. For the first time ever two Americans, Bode Miller and Daron Rahlves, shared the podium #’s 1 & 2. Also a first in history, the men and women stood on the downhill podium simultaneously as Lindsey Kildow won in Lake Louise, Canada. The men are scheduled back for the full series of races this December so think about coming up and supporting our boys as they get tuned up for next year’s Olympics. It’s a fantastic event at the premier ski resort in America. You never know when you will get another chance to see this level of skiing. |
| TRAVEL
TIPS, FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS... Midnight, outside a quaint Victorian storefront it’s late January and about ten below zero on the thermometer. A group of young adults and one older woman are laughing and piling snow, packing it with their mittens, and then piling some more. As you overhear them discussing how they are going to shape the head and helmet and how to texture the beard you realize that this is going to be some kind of artwork. Twenty years ago a few locals in the little Colorado Ski Town of Breckenridge thought it would be a fun addition to the Ullr Fest winter carnival to have a competition making sculptures out of snow. No one really knew what they were doing and the common reaction was “what’s it supposed to be?” Most of the subjects were snowflakes, skiers or Ullr, the Norse God of winter and honoree of the carnival. Back then Breckenridge was fairly unknown compared to Aspen and Vail. In 1980 Main Street had as many vacant lots as stores and no curbs or stoplights. The lodging was haphazard condominiums constructed with paper walls and shag carpet. Many of the locals lived in old mining shacks without plumbing or electricity. My, how things have changed and the sculpture competition is a reflection of how far Breckenridge has come. As the popularity of Breckenridge grew, serious artists began to come up from schools in Boulder and Denver and create truly stunning pieces of snow sculpture. Themes evolved to include things like a lady in a champagne glass and three leaping dolphins that stood about fifteen feet tall. Soon most locals were too embarrassed to display their creations anymore. This led to the idea of bringing the world’s best to Breckenridge for a championship every year. It turned out some of the best already lived in Breckenridge and the local teams have won many awards, not just in the hometown but also in competitions all over the world. If you come for the whole week you will witness an amazing phenomenon. To make a championship caliber snow sculpture start with a ten foot by ten foot by twelve-foot high wooden form. Fill it with pure white snow. But you don’t just fill it; human feet must pack it as you go, with boots on of course. In Breckenridge this is done by dozens of volunteers working through the night. After leaving it to season for a night or so, what you have when you remove the form is a white block weighing about twenty tons. Until you have witnessed it you cannot imagine what these will look like in three days time. What transpires is magical. The teams begin cutting out the rough form of their creation with handsaws, no power tools are allowed. All the cuts must be strategically planned and a degree in engineering is a plus. Otherwise the whole structure can end up in a heap not suitable for making a snowman. Teams must also plan how far to take their creation each day; the final shape must come together the last night before the judging or a warm day can eat through your sculpture like acid. The teams work straight through the night before and the detail work is done with tools as delicate as a dentist’s. Some of the final creations are unbelievably intricate. Last year’s winner had a miniature village with people and buildings no taller than twelve inches. Few places on earth can you witness art being brought from the raw to the dazzling before your eyes. Teams come from the expected places to compete. Traditionally cold climates like Russia and Minnesota always come but Mexico also sends a couple of teams. One year the Jamaican team practiced in an industrial freezer to acclimate themselves. It wasn't enough; they dropped out before the judging because of the cold. From a contest where mainly locals walked around enjoying each other’s crude artwork, the International Snow Sculpting Championships now draws over ten thousand spectators each of the final two days. Just as the competition has reached world-class level, the town is now home to world-class entertainment, dining and accommodations. Breckenridge has slope side mansions, golf course luxury homes and four-star condominium villages to rival any mountain resort. The formerly forgotten Peak Eight base area will see a Beaver Creek style development in the next few years. If you haven’t been to Breckenridge before, or maybe not for a while, the snow sculpture week is a perfect time to find out why it is North America’s second favorite ski town. Happy trails. Contact me if you need further tips on where to stay, eat or play. |
| INVESTMENT
OPPORTUNITIES Insider’s tip for my readers. The skiway and gondola have passed preliminary approvals and rumor has it we could see construction begin as soon as next summer. This will make many properties ski-in/ski-out that now rely on shuttle busses. Guess what will happen to demand in these areas? Call me soon before prices go through the roof. The Colorado unemployment rate was 5% in November, down nearly one percentage point from November 2003 and below the national unemployment rate of 5.4%. The Colorado Department of Transportation has released its nine “preferred alternatives” in its draft environmental statement for Interstate 70 improvements, with traffic on I-70 projected to double. The draft PEIS is available at www.I70mtncorridor.com. #1 on the list is boring another hole in the Continental Divide and making the freeway three lanes in each direction. Supporters of a monorail system from Denver to Vail released a study that shows the project is technically feasible and can be done for less cost per mile than a planned highway expansion. The study shows a "magnetic levitation” system could be built for $5.6 billion for 156 miles versus 40 miles of highway expansion for $2.9 billion. The GDP will grow this year at 4.5%, one of the best years in the last twenty. The economy is projected to create 2.2 million jobs next year as growth continues strong. The 2005 Colorado Business Economic Outlook from the University of Colorado at Boulder forecasts the state will add 43,100 non-farm jobs next year and unemployment will fall from 5.3% to 4.8%. Every sector is projected to experience job growth. Colorado resort-area meeting and convention facilities, ranked by 2003 convention revenue: Keystone Resort and Conference Center $22,496,890 St. Regis Resort Aspen $15,000,000 Snowmass Village Resort Association $ 8,000,000 Beaver Run Resort and Conference Center $ 5,817,000 Copper Mountain Resort $ 5,200,000 What has all this got to do with mountain real estate? Contact me and we can discuss things. |
MARKET
CONDITIONS REPORT Sales of previously owned homes rose 2.7% to a record rate in November nationwide. Already 6.14 million homes have been sold year to date surpassing the 6.1 million in record breaking 2003. In Colorado, existing home sales were up 18% over ’03 with sales totaling $14 billion so far. Real estate sales in Pitkin County have, as of the end of October, already set a new record, with $1.36 billion in sales through October, compared with the previous record of $1.27 billion for all of 2000. The number of real estate listings in Eagle County is dropping, with the amount of real estate listed as of Dec. 5 this year down 37% from three years ago, but prices are soaring. Real estate prices countywide have jumped 16% in the last year. Eagle County too has had a record sales year. Summit County numbers will be out soon but it appears that the number of transactions is up nearly 8% over last year and could set a record here. One and two bedroom condos in Breckenridge, in virtually all price ranges, have been bought up. Nearly 400 have sold and less than 100 remain on the market, less than 30 under $300K. See a pattern here? The population in Summit County is up 7% since the turn of the millennium and could double again in the next 20 years. I –70 traffic is projected to double in the next 20 years due to the increase of nearly 50% in the Front Range population. Summit County will be built out by 2013. Contact me soon; your piece of paradise is only going to get more expensive. Don’t wait ‘till rates and prices go up further; Contact Me Today! |