It's been years coming, but Ketchum finally worked up the nerve to unchain itself from the past and move toward a healthy economic future when the City Council gave the 73-room Hotel Ketchum a unanimous green light Monday night.
It will be the first luxury hotel in the city's history.
More than two dozen business people and working residents, who represented a large cross-section of the area's tourist-based economy, showed up to support the hotel. They expressed strong support for action at the critical economic juncture at which the Wood River Valley stands.
Their abundant presence and depth of experience brought the hearing an air of seriousness and focus on the state of the local economy that has been missing for too long in hotel debates. Business people gave the council firsthand accounts of the difficult and precarious nature of operations in a seasonal resort area whose accommodations have been largely eclipsed by competitors.
The importance of their presence cannot be overemphasized.
Sun Valley Co. also sent word of its support for Hotel Ketchum—an important endorsement from a company that acknowledges that the area needs to expand lodging options and meeting facilities.
The council was also encouraged by remarks from Hailey Mayor Rick Davis, who said his city well understands that its vitality is utterly dependent upon the health of its northern siblings. It was a show of economic solidarity that has been decades in coming.
Davis said visitors provide critical cash infusions to Hailey businesses and the city through local-option taxes collected on lodging and car rentals.
Now, the real work can begin.
The hotel will be looking for financing in the midst of a national investment crisis. The City Council rebuffed hotel opponents and wisely granted the developers a two-year window in which to get financing before city approval may expire.
The Hotel Ketchum cannot single-handedly pull a valley that has lost a significant portion of its bed base out of the doldrums. That will take additional hotels and new amenities.
But it's a good start.
Along with Sun Valley Co.'s enormous new investments in its second golf course, luxury clubhouse and spa, the remarkable Sun Valley Pavilion, and new ski gondola, approval of the Hotel Ketchum offers hope that the valley will move forward into a more stable and prosperous future. It offers hope that providing great vacation experiences in one of the best places in the world can continue to be the valley's bread and butter.
