For the week of December 18 - 23, 2002

To hotel or not to hotel?

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"Community character" is the battle cry in Ketchum for those who would freeze the town in time.

Another battle in the so-called war over "community character" is being waged in the chambers of the Ketchum City Council. The issue is the proposed development of a hotel on one full block of Main Street that would reach a height of 59 feet in its center—24 feet taller than the city’s height limit—and have a 69-foot clock tower.

The hotel is cleverly designed to have the feel of an old-style mountain lodge. In an H-formation on the lot, the building wedding-cakes from two stories on the front to four in the crossbar.

The design marries the economics of building and operating an 81-room hotel and conference facility with the aesthetic sensibilities of the town.

Of course, many people would like to preserve Bald Mountain Lodge, a log motel operation whose natural hot water pool was filled in more than 10 years ago.

It’s not going to happen.

It’s nearly impossible to freeze privately owned property in time with no economic incentive to do so. Such a freeze could turn back the clock on the economy, to a time when the valley contained little more than the lodge at Sun Valley and a few bars in Ketchum.

Bald Mountain Lodge will be re-developed one way or another. The question before the city is what will be developed there? Or, more to the point, what will not be developed?

Hotel developer Brian Barsotti says economic conditions dictate a choice: the proposed hotel or a retail/residential complex. Or, high-end residences only.

We can think of nothing worse for Main Street than a strictly residential development, unless of course one likes the idea of beginning to kill off the community of businesses that struggles every year to stay alive.

Ketchum needs new hotels. It has lost the Heidleberg, Ketchum Korral, the Christiania and Ski View Lodge to demolition or to long-term rentals. The Elkhorn Hotel, Sun Valley’s alter ego, is now closed and slated for demolition as well.

Tourism is the bedrock of the local economy. Everything else, from construction to tech, from groceries to government, relies on tourism’s cash and amenities.

The economy is an upside-down triangle, with tourism at the precarious point. Other sectors, like construction, are bigger than tourism. But if tourism dries up—if the ski lifts, golf courses and restaurants close down—the economy will topple.

If it toppled, many old inhabitants might return, but what kind of economy and community will tumbleweeds make?

So, given economic realities, how can Ketchum avoid losing its "character" and become one of the ugly urban centers residents say they despise? Balance.

Right now, the city’s economic balance is out of whack. A good hotel will help restore it and enhance Ketchum at the same time.

The Ketchum Planning and Zoning commission and the hotel architect worked hard to balance the town’s aesthetic sensibilities and ordinance requirements with the need for a new hotel.

They succeeded. The hotel was designed, redesigned and redesigned again. Each time it got better.

Ultimately, it received a unanimous recommendation from the P&Z, not an easy body to please.

Yes, the hotel will block views of Baldy and shadow Main Street in the afternoon, but no more than any other building allowed under existing ordinances.

Yes, it will exceed the height restriction designed to rein in ugly bulky buildings that stretched skyward and loomed over the town.

But the hotel is no ugly box; it’s an elegant piece of architecture.

Opponents say they don’t want to see a hotel when they enter Ketchum. They wring their hands over the potential loss of the city’s "soul" with the disappearance of the log motel.

Two hotels, the Knob Hill Inn and the Kentwood Lodge, are already on Main Street. For the Kentwood, the city closed an alley to enable development.

If Main Street is not the proper place for this hotel, what is? Isn’t it possible the city may find its "soul" in an elegant building?

The City Council is right to sweat the details before deciding whether to give the project a green light. But, in the end, it should approve the hotel.

It will help keep Ketchum alive and vibrant and help stave off the darkness and decline of cities and towns that rot from the inside out.

 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.