Friday — April 9, 2004

Master plan
wows audience

Holding details 50-year
‘vision’ for Sun Valley

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By GREGORY FOLEY
Express Staff Writer

In what is likely the most significant development proposal ever put forth in the Wood River Valley, Sun Valley Co. this week presented a 50-year master plan that calls for three new luxury hotels, scores of private residences, an ambitious gondola project and a new 9-hole golf course.

Sun Valley Co. is preparing to formally propose a new hotel that would be located on the site of the Sun Valley Village parking lot. The planned hotel is one of three the company might build in the Sun Valley area in the next 50 years. Express photo by David N. Seelig

Sun Valley Co. General Manager Wally Huffman presented the plan Tuesday, April 6, to some 800 interested citizens packed into the Limelight Room at the Sun Valley Inn.

Huffman said the plans drafted by Denver-based planning consultant Design Workshop represent Sun Valley Co. owner Earl Holding’s ultimate concept of what some 2,800 acres of company land in Sun Valley and Ketchum should look like.

"It’s his vision of what he thinks could happen in the next 50 to 60 years," Huffman said, stressing that numerous factors—including market forces—will decide what elements of the plan are actually developed.

 

Changes will come

However, Huffman made it clear that although Holding has not actively pursued real-estate development in Sun Valley, subsequent owners would certainly seek changes to squeeze profits from company lands.

"Resorts do not exist to develop ski areas," he said. "Ski areas exist so resorts can develop land. That’s the unfortunate era in which we live."

The plan, he said, could ultimately prevent a new owner from dramatically altering the character of Sun Valley.

Wally Huffman, Sun Valley Co. general manager, enjoyed the spotlight Tuesday as he presented a 50-year master plan to develop company properties. Express photo by Willy Cook

The master plan presented Tuesday includes proposals to develop areas of Sun Valley Village, the Sun Valley Gun Club property, areas around Penny Mountain, the so-called Prospector property and approximately 160 acres of land surrounding River Run Lodge, at the base of Bald Mountain.

Sun Valley Co. is already planning to build an upscale, child friendly guest lodge at the base of Dollar Mountain, Huffman said.

"This facility we plan to build this summer and have operational for Christmas," he said to loud applause.

 

Hotels proposed for village

The most ambitious plans are for Sun Valley Village, a commercial-zoned area that could legally accommodate dense developments of up to 30 units per acre.

Plans for the village core include a new 200- to 250-room hotel immediately southeast of the Sun Valley Lodge, a new 120- to 200-room hotel immediately north of the Sun Valley Lodge, and a new conference facility immediately west of the Sun Valley Inn.

"We’re not proposing any buildings higher than the lodge," Huffman said.

The plans also call for a new post office located on the northwest corner of the village, a music green and open-space area east of the Sun Valley Lodge, new residential projects on the north, east and west sides of the village, and reconfiguring parts of the pedestrian mall.

 

Employees will move

Underground parking would be built under the new hotel north of the lodge. The former hospital and aging employee-housing buildings—which now accommodate 400 residents—would be removed. New employee housing could be built directly across Sun Valley Road, Huffman said.

The total proposed square footage of new development in the Sun Valley Village area is approximately 443,000 square feet. At buildout, some 500 new hotel units and 250 new residential units would be added.

In addition, the plans for the village call for a new gondola terminal immediately east of the Sun Valley Ice Rink. The proposed gondola—referred to as a "creative dream"—would travel to a terminal on Dollar Mountain and then proceed over Reinheimer Ranch, south of Ketchum, to River Run Lodge.

Huffman said the short-term odds of the proposed gondola being constructed are "pretty slim," but noted that creating a convenient means of travel between central Sun Valley and Bald Mountain has long been a company priority.

The presentation of the gondola concept was met with an enthusiastic reaction from the audience.

 

Golf course proposed

Other key aspects of the master plan propose to:

• Develop the Sun Valley Gun Club parcel—an area where Sun Valley Co. owns approximately 130 acres—with a mixture of mutli-family structures and residential lots. Plans call for a total of 160 units.
  
   
• In addition, a new 9-hole golf course would be built along the edges of the property, surrounding the residential developments west of Trail Creek Road.
  
   
• Build 72 residential units around the base of Penny Mountain, the popular sledding hill at the corner of Sun Valley and Saddle roads. The units would be built at the base of the hills, set back from Sun Valley Road. The approximately 15-acre Penny Mountain parcel is zoned to accommodate 102 units.
  
   
• Develop 32 townhouses and 32 single-family lots on the company’s Prospector property, located across from Dollar Cabin, near Sun Valley City Hall.
  
   
• Maintain the Sun Valley Horseman’s Center in its current location on the east side of Sun Valley Road.
  
   
• Possibly develop some lands north and east of Trail Creek Cabin.

 

Plans for River Run

As for the company’s 160 acres of land in Blaine County surrounding the River Run Lodge, Huffman said he will seek later this year to annex the land into the city of Ketchum.

Plans for the mostly Tourist-zoned land include a 200-room luxury hotel southeast of the lodge, adjacent to a 1500-space, mostly underground four-level parking lot. The River Run master plan also calls for 350 condominium units—located primarily on the northern and eastern portions of the site—and 10 estate lots near the existing bike path, which would be preserved.

Two of the River Run housing structures are delineated as employee housing.

 

Protecting businesses

Huffman said only a small amount of commercial space is planned for the area, in large part to protect the viability of businesses in downtown Ketchum.

"We don’t want to create a third commercial core in the northern Wood River Valley," Huffman said.

Nor, he noted, does Sun Valley Co. want to establish a full-scale ski village at River Run that would compete with operations at Sun Valley Village.

"If we did that, we would move all of our business there in the winter, and it would be dead in the summer," he said.

The presentation did not outline specific plans for 40 acres of land that the company owns at the Warm Springs base area of Bald Mountain. Technically, 200 housing units could be built there.

 

Plan calls for low densities

Reaction to the presentation was mostly positive, particularly for plans to maintain open-space in Sun Valley Village and to develop a new golf course.

The crowd was less laudatory of the plans to develop around Penny Mountain.

However, Huffman cautioned the public against mustering too much resistance to new development. The master plan—which calls for approximately 2,200 new development units on lands zoned to accommodate 3,400 units—would almost certainly propose greater densities under an owner other than Holding, he said.

"All of the people that are buying into ski resorts these days are large land development companies, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid."

Becky Zimmermann, a partner in Design Workshop who presented the plan with Huffman, said it is extremely rare for resort landowners to propose densities less than those allowed by zoning law.

"We don’t have very many clients who do that," she said.

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