For the week of February 12-18, 2003

Historic bank in Ketchum could be protected

 

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

City council to decide

• Ketchum’s historic Isaac Lewis First National Bank could receive protection from demolition as a means to compensate for deficient parking stalls at the site.
  
   
• The Ketchum City Council is scheduled to consider proposals from the property’s owners and leasing agent at a 5:30 p.m. meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 18, at Ketchum City Hall.

Ketchum’s original bank, built in 1884, could become the resort town’s first historic building protected from demolition.

The Isaac Lewis First National Bank was built by the man considered to be Ketchum’s founding father, entrepreneur and miner Isaac Lewis. The bank on Main Street is now occupied by the Chapter One Bookstore and Akasha Organics. It is owned in conjunction with the neighboring building, the former Sagebrush Gallery, and a rooftop apartment.

When the property’s owners, Robert and Mary Hastings, asked the Ketchum City Council early this month to subdivide the property’s three components, a deficiency in parking surfaced.

"They’re missing two parking spaces," said Harold Moniz, acting planning administrator. "That’s what they’re required to have, and that’s what should be there."

But some creative thinking by the council could result in protection for the historic building, rather than more parking.

"It sure is a nice building, and I’d like to see it stay the same," said Councilman Baird Gourlay at a Feb. 3 meeting. "I wonder if we shouldn’t negotiate some of the parking spaces for a deed restriction."

Moniz said the Hastings have several options. They could build two additional parking stalls; they could pay $40,000 to the city’s in lieu of parking fund; they could provide a deed restriction; they could sell the building’s extra density as a TDR; or they could combine a deed restriction with a TDR.

The building’s leasing agent, Nan Emerick, said she has been pushing for the subdivision of the three components to help avoid the demolition of all three, including the historic bank.

"The people who were asking about it were interested in leveling it or land banking it," she said. "I live here. I’ve lived here since 1976, and I’d like to see that property stay the same."

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