It's certainly not unanimous, but several northern Wood River Valley business owners say there is a need for a hotel in Ketchum, and the city should do what it can to accommodate one.
"I want more bodies. I want a hotel, a good one, with a bar and a restaurant, one that has a lot of people who want to come here and enjoy our beautiful little town," said Todd Rippo, owner of Java on Fourth in Ketchum, as well as establishments in Boise and Twin Falls. "This is a service economy. We are totally dependent on tourism. How odd is it to say, 'Let's give the tourists somewhere to stay?'"
The city of Ketchum recently began entertaining a proposal for a 200,000-square-foot, 200-room, 67-foot-tall hotel called The Gateway Hotel. The large, high-end hotel would be built at the corner of Main and River streets on six lots bought over a three-year span.
At an initial review of the building, the Ketchum Planning and Zoning Commission expressed the city's ongoing desire for a new hotel, but stressed that the proposed building was too large.
"I have a real concern with the size and height and mass," Commissioner Rich Fabiano said. "The town certainly does need a hotel, but is it the right site? What we don't want to see is a massive structure at the gateway to our town. Do I think the hotel is attractive? Yes. Do I think it's well-designed? Yes. Do I think it's in the wrong place? Definitely."
There are up to nine hotel applications either pending or in the pipeline at Ketchum City Hall. Three are at the corner of River and Main streets at the city's southern entrance. Two are in Warm Springs, one is at the Simplot property in West Ketchum and one is at the River Run base of Bald Mountain.
Ketchum attorney and developer Brian Barsotti saw his plans for a new Bald Mountain Lodge hotel shot down several years ago. In the end, he said the scaled-down version of the hotel that was finally approved was not viable. He is attempting to rebuild city interest in a hotel proposal in Warm Springs.
"I'm concerned about the direction this whole discussion's going," Barsotti said at The Gateway Hotel review last month. "You're hearing tonight the problem that everyone faces who's doing a hotel. You're hearing the hotelier saying, 'We need some size to make this thing work.' You need to decide: Do you want a hotel? If you want hotels, you're going to have to have some size and bulk."
For his part, Sturtevants Mountain Outfitters owner Rob Santa said the size of a new hotel doesn't concern him so much as sensitive design.
"There's no silver bullet or panacea for the economic engine, as it were," Santa said. "I don't think a hotel is going to make Ketchum night life or downtown business thrive. I'm fundamentally in favor of density in the core with the condition that it's architecturally attractive. I don't think bulk and height should be the defining characteristics" for approval. "I'm not knee jerking at height and density."
Ketchum's hotel debate is an aging one, and while the debate goes on, the city's status as a resort town has increasingly become something of an oxymoron.
The number of hotel rooms in the northern Wood River Valley has slipped significantly. From 1999 to 2002, Ketchum lost 243 hotel rooms and a difficult-to-surmise number of condominiums. Following those losses, the northern valley is able to host approximately 5,800 guests in hotels and condominiums, according to the Sun Valley-Ketchum Chamber & Visitors Bureau.
In Elkhorn, the 132-room Elkhorn Hotel closed its doors in 2002, prompting a 26 percent decline of the northern valley's bed base. In Ketchum, the Christiania Motor Lodge, Heidelberg Inn, Ketchum Korral and Ski View Lodge all were casualties.
But hoteliers and Sun Valley marketing gurus contend the closures don't translate result from a lack of demand for hotel rooms. Lodging properties are simply becoming much mo�e valuable than the lodges.
"I don't think it's the demand as much as it's the real estate," said chamber Marketing Director Carrie Westergard. "It's business for these people. They can sell these properties for much more than they can rent them, unfortunately."
In Ketchum, a rags-to-riches redevelopment scenario was recently proposed and shot down at the historic Bald Mountain Lodge site, which occupies an entire city block on south Main Street. Despite the alleged need for hotel rooms, two developers were denied their plans to build high-end hotels at the site, though one proposal is still under consideration pending further redesign and study.
The gist, however, is that despite a general desire among local residents, politicians and merchants for a new hotel, plans consistently include designs that are larger than what they want.
In a 2002 interview with the Idaho Mountain Express, chamber Executive Director Carol Waller said the resort community is heading for trouble if the decline continues. Short-term accommodations are at the core of any resort community's economy, she said.
"Without them, tourists don't stay," she said. "Stores remain empty. The resort community becomes less of a resort, and city sales tax collections drop."
A small sampling of local merchants this week found agreement with Waller's five-year-old contention.
"I'm for anything in this town that moves it in the right direction of retail and beautification," said Terry Murphy, owner of Bellissimo, which is located in the Galleria at the corner of Leadville Avenue and Fourth Street. "I think we're in great need of destination hotels in order to keep people interested in our stores, interested in us."
Murphy said it is difficult to tell if The Gateway Hotel is the right hotel for Ketchum. Initial renderings are inexact and hard to study.
"It looked beautiful, but I don't think you can really tell without a model," she said. "But, again, we need hotels."
Rippo said the debate about size and scale misses the point, and the point is the need.
"We've got enough sophistication up here to understand what a beautiful hotel looks like," he said. "So let's get one. We don't have anything that's great. The fact that Ketchum doesn't have something along those lines is crazy.
"I've watched four or five hotels leave, and nothing's taken their place. When my friends and relatives come to town, they end up renting a condo somewhere. I'd rather have them staying in town, so they can walk out the door, come to Java and buy a Bowl of Soul (coffee drink)."
Santa said the depth and seriousness of any would-be hotel developer is paramount in the city's consideration of a proposal. Those things, along with architectural sensitivity, far outweigh the size-and-bulk debate. Any building constructed at Ketchum's southern gateway "has got to be a signature building," he said.
"Business is not getting easier here," Santa said. "Where we've slipped, it's winter business."
Important parts of the local business equation in addition to short-term accommodations include air service and marketing, and it doesn't help that Sun Valley continues to market to an aging clientele.
"We're not even on the map among younger skiers," Santa said. "Once young people get here, they love it. But we're just not on the radar screen in terms of national impressions."
The Gateway Hotel is a new 200,000-square-foot, 200-room lodge proposed for the southern entrance to Ketchum. The debate centering on The Gateway remains what the hotel debate in Ketchum has long been: Does Ketchum want a hotel badly enough to allow a larger degree of size and height?
