Essentially, all buildings in Ketchum are three stories or less and the height of new structures is limited by ordinance: The City Council has done an excellent job of enforcing the ordinance. As a result, the community has its view corridors protected. The views of our beautiful mountains belong to everyone and are one of our most precious assets; they define the character of our community.
Developers occasionally request variances in order to build taller buildings with greater habitation density and therefore greater profits. The City Council has consistently turned down these requests. Thank you, City Council, for protecting our rights; you have established a precedent that is of critical importance to the community. Please stick to your guns! By the way, there is a new threat coming.
The building site in question includes the Paul Kenny's ski shop, Outabounds restaurant (now out of business) and Bald Mountain Lodge. A five-story building would be devastating to the view corridors of homes in the area and pedestrians coming to the mountain. In order to appreciate how incongruous such a structure would be, one needs to walk around the vicinity and just imagine.
A business plan to build a five-story hotel in this location is suspect. First and foremost, there is no established need; occupancy rates of existing hotels in the valley are low and seasonal. Second, previous hotel ventures and restaurants on this very site have failed. Third, if Warm Springs needed a hotel, Earl Holding would have built it.
Why would anyone with a business purpose propose to build a hotel with such a dismal past, present and future perspective? Who knows, but we can confidently predict that when the venture fails, the whole project will be converted to condominiums. The community in the area will then be stuck with a five-story structure blocking our precious views of our beautiful mountains and the community will have lost some of its bucolic character with the presence of a big "sore thumb."
George and Karen Bailey
Robert Albrecht
Margi Albrecht
Lou Dorsey
John and Maryann Underwood
John Agoglia
Residents of Warm Springs
