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September 2007

Barn Village Lots snapped up over weekend release!

Over Labor Day weekend, buyers lined up and put down refundable deposits on more than $36 million worth of single family and duplex lots in the new Barn Village subdivision, site of the historic More Barn.

Within three hours, 51 of the 54 building lots in the first release of Barn Village at Steamboat were spoken for. The remaining three were reserved in a 10-minute span the next morning. The most expensive of the building sites were duplex lots that topped out at $1.15 million.

By the time the Labor Day weekend was over, 75 percent of the lots had backup reservations in place, and a dozen lots had two backups.

Barn Village at Steamboat comprises a total of 62 home sites on 40 acres to the east of the More Barn. The developers, Bob Comes, Jim Kelley and Eric McAfee, held back eight lots from the initial reservation process.

The iconic barn will be conserved and incorporated into a 4-acre city park fronting Pine Grove Road.

Barn Village at Steamboat does not yet have its final subdivision plat, and contracts cannot be signed until it's in place. Assistant City Planning Director John Eastman said the final plat is largely a formality. It could take six to 12 weeks to be finalized.

The subdivision approval allows primarily three types of housing. There are 12 duplex lots, 34 small lots for single-family homes in a neo-traditional neighborhood with back-loaded garages, and larger lots for larger single-family homes. The broader site also envisions two multi-family buildings, which were not a part of the reservation process. One will be used by the developers to meet their affordable housing requirements. Yampa Valley Medical Center has secured the right to develop a multi-family building on the south edge of the subdivision where it could provide transitional employee housing for new hires.

The neo-traditional lots, measuring between 0.14 and 0.21 acres, sold for between $451,000 and $575,000. Interest in the duplex lots was particularly strong among members of the construction community. The duplex lots were also the most expensive in the subdivision, beginning with one lot priced at $995,000 and continuing in small increments up to $1.15 million.  The grade of the duplex lots is ideal for maximizing living space through the use of a walkout basement bordering Fish Creek. Contractors have a chance to build a three-story building that presents only two stories to the street front.

A quick analysis of the availability of undeveloped building lots in Steamboat puts the success of the Barn Village reservation event in perspective.

The 54 lots reserved at Barn Village last week represent a bigger number than the total number of undeveloped building lots remaining on the market elsewhere within the city limits.  There are 33 lots currently listed for sale in the city limits. The lowest price is $399,500.

Of the 33 lots on the market, 16 are priced below $1.1 million.

The breakout holds up when you focus more closely on lots at the mountain area. There are 22 lots listed for sale at the mountain, and 11 of those are priced below $1.1 million.

Eastman did some tentative arithmetic on the smaller lots in the neo-traditional neighborhood based on maximum lot coverage and building heights in the applicable "resort neighborhood" zone district. He concluded that buyers could easily build homes of several thousand square feet. Building height restrictions would allow homes to be 2.5 stories tall, he said.

Comes said he and his partners held back eight larger single-family lots in the eastern end of the subdivision where it borders the neighborhood along Robert E. Lee Lane and Memphis Belle Court. He said the reason was twofold. First, they will wait to let the value of the building lots mature in Steamboat's rising real estate market.

Second, they want to take time to consider going forward with developing homes on the eight lots themselves.

The four larger lots that were reserved last week began at 0.32 acres and increased to 0.58 acres in size. The smallest was priced at $695,000, and the most expensive was priced at $735,000.

Exerpts taken from article written by Tom Ross, Steamboat Pilot & Today

8:15 AM - Sep. 20, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment
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Steamboat Ski Area Remains in TOP 10!

 Steamboat Ski Area holds onto it's top 10 ranking in the latest SKI magazine's annual reader's poll, coming in at # 9!

Deer Valley, Utah, placed first for the second time in three years. Steamboat was sandwiched between Beaver Creek in eighth and Sun Valley, Idaho, in 10th.

SKI typically polls about 6,000 readers each year to get their perceptions of ski areas in 18 categories. They include overall satisfaction, access, apres ski, dining, family programs, grooming, lifts, lodging, off-hill activities, on-mountain food, scenery, service, snow terrain/challenge, terrain variety, terrain parks, value and weather.

SKI editor Greg Ditrinco said his magazine's typical reader is 37 to 38 years old and skis 23 times a season. In order to be eligible to rate a resort, the reader must have skied it within the past two years and have been a subscriber for two years. An independent polling firm conducts the survey.

SKI won't release details of the survey until the publication of its October issue. However, Steamboat can be expected to score high marks, as it has in the past, for its family programs.

Steamboat President Chris Diamond attributes his company's strong public perception in that area to its longstanding "Kids Ski Free" and "Kids Fly Free" programs.

Ski area spokesperson Heidi Thomsen observed that the addition of the Sunshine Express high-speed quad chairlift last year could boost skiing families' perception of Steamboat. The list affords improved access to a large expanse of family skiing terrain on a high elevation southern exposure.

Steamboat perennially gets low marks in the poll for the lack of extreme terrain and nightlife. And despite a steady increase in available airline seats, Steamboat doesn't typically get high marks for "ease of access."

Ditrinco told the Steamboat Pilot & Today in a previous interview that his readers place as much emphasis on creature comforts as they do on ski terrain and snow conditions.

Taken from article written by Tom Ross, Steamboat Pilot & Today

8:03 AM - Sep. 20, 2007 - comments {0} - post comment
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