Simplot parcel plan is multi-faceted
Owners want to trade development
density for streets
By GREGORY FOLEY
Express Staff Writer
The owners of the Simplot Lot—the largest
vacant land parcel in the Ketchum city core—have filed an application to
subdivide and develop the high-profile property.
Plans for the 3.8-acre parcel west of the
Ketchum Post Office were submitted May 10 by architect James Ruscitto and
real-estate broker Dick Fenton, who have in the last year drafted a master
development plan for the site.
At issue is one of Ketchum’s most
visible—and valuable—land parcels.
The Tourist-zoned Simplot parcel covers
two city blocks between Second and Third avenues and Fourth and Sixth streets.
The property is owned by Gay and Scott Simplot, members of the family that
founded the Boise-based JR Simplot Company, an international agribusiness
corporation.
The multi-faceted proposal submitted by
Ruscitto and Fenton ultimately envisions developing the property with a mix of
market-rate and community housing, civic uses, parks and commercial space.
Specifically, the project representatives
have requested that the city rezone the western half of the property and approve
a development agreement that strictly limits the building envelopes and uses on
the site.
In what is likely to be the most
controversial aspect of the plan, the applicants have asked the city to vacate
two platted, undeveloped roadways on the parcel, including a portion of Fifth
Street.
In the application, Ruscitto and Fenton
claim that the west end of Fifth Street and an alley that would dissect the
property from north to south "are no longer necessary for public uses."
The primary aspects of the proposed
development plan include:
- Permitting development of the west half
of the property with no more than 30 duplex housing units. The area would be
downzoned to accommodate only residential uses.
- Developing three large Tourist-zoned
lots on the eastern half of the property.
- Installing a public transit terminal
across from the post office.
- Redeveloping and rerouting a public
bicycle path that courses through the property.
- Closing off with landscaping—but not
vacating—a section of Third Avenue adjacent to the project.
Project representatives have expressed an
interest in selling a lot on the southeast corner of the site to the Sun Valley
Center for the Arts for development of a new organization headquarters.
The other two lots have been designed to
accommodate two mixed-use structures, incorporating commercial and residential
units.
However, the proposed lot on the northeast
corner of the site would be offered to the city as a potential site for a new
city hall.
Fenton said the proposed development
agreement would limit the amount of commercial space that could be built on the
three lots that would compose the eastern half of the site—along Second Avenue.
"What we’re trying to do is make sure that
if there aren’t public buildings on those lots there are mixed-use buildings."
The plan calls for including an
unspecified number of deed-restricted community-housing units in the buildings
along Second Avenue, Fenton said.
The application submitted this month does
not propose to construct any buildings on the site.
The owners, Fenton said, have not
determined if they would develop the property themselves, develop it as part of
a joint venture, or sell it with an approved development plan.
The Ketchum Planning and Zoning Commission
is tentatively scheduled to consider the plan on June 28.