U.S. Pro Cycling Challenge a success
VAIL – Last week, Coloradans forgot about the Broncos and lit out for backcountry roads and city streets to watch some of the world’s best bicycle racers. From the start at Colorado Springs to the finish line in Denver, there were large crowds all along the way.

Whether it produced much money for mountain towns on the route seems to be almost incidental. More towns – including Durango and Telluride, as well as the university towns of Boulder and Fort Collins – want to get in on the action next year.

The closest thing to a glitch was when a competitor riding up Cottonwood Pass in the much-anticipated silver stage between Gunnison and Aspen, tumbled while crossing a cattle guard, breaking both hands and suffering enough facial injuries that plastic surgeons were called in.

Those reporting from the race course related a carnival-like atmosphere, with all manner of people in costumes, some of them downright bizarre. The Denver Post tells of somebody dressed like Jesus with a white robe and a crown of thorns carrying a sign reading “Spandex is sin.”

In estimating crowd sizes, race organizers consistently erred on the size of inflated numbers. In Summit County, for example, they estimated 50,000 people lined the race course. The county has a permanent population of about 28,000.

But the Steamboat Pilot, which should know such things, said that the turnout for the leg of the race from Avon was the largest event that has ever occurred in downtown Steamboat Springs, surpassing even the Fourth of July parade and the Winter Carnival festivities.

Race participants were also prone to flattering comparisons. One competitor said it was the greatest turnout he had ever seen – and he didn’t limit that to just the United States.

The race was sparked when Lance Armstrong, now a part-time Aspen resident, called then-Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and asked him why Colorado didn’t have a high-caliber bicycle race. And so the wheels began spinning.

It took a lot of money, both from host towns, including Crested Butte, Vail and Breckenridge, but also far up and beyond.

A principal figure is Richard Schaden, a Boulder-based trail lawyer and businessman (Quiznos sandwich chain and Smashburger), who put $10 million into the race along with his son and business partner, Rick Schaden.

The elder Schaden told reporters in Aspen that he knew they had a hot property when the first three finishers on the Tour de France this year bypassed a race in Spain to come to compete in the Colorado race.

While the race was capital intensive in its first year, he said that in future years he sees bidding wars between major sponsors. He said he will give the race three years to take off before he would pull the plug.

In ski towns, meanwhile, host committees are calculating the costs and benefits. Even when lodges filled up, that didn’t necessarily translate into booming business in the stores.

But the race got major international exposure, and host communities believe that’s worth quite a lot. Whether they truly got their money back in terms of marketing exposure in this, the first year, is still being calculated.

Ridgway objects to Family Dollar Store
RIDGWAY – Hang the low prices, a good number of people in Ridgway don’t want a Family Dollar Store. The wildly successful chain store has rights to build in Ridgway, but 700 people have signed a petition saying stay away.

“We all moved here because we wanted to get away from life in big cities that are full of Wal-Marts and big-box stores,” said opposition leader Vicci Spencer, who organized a group called CPR, or Citizens to Preserve Ridgway.

“We like the character of our little, small town, and its aesthetics are very important to us,” she told the Telluride Watch.

But is a Family Dollar Store a manifestation of urban America? Or a tradition that more closely resembles the franchise retailers found in mid-century small-town America?

Main streets in small towns all used to have Gamble’s and Coast to Coast, for hardware needs, and Ben Franklin’s, Duckwall’s and a host of others for miscellaneous items. Later, a chain called Gibson’s arrived, being a smaller-town equivalent to the K-Marts and Targets.

For that matter, plenty of small towns now have Family Dollars. Citing a recent New York Times story, the Watch reports that Family Dollar stores have been thriving during the time of economic decline. The company sees its core customers as a female head of household in her mid-40s who is making less than $40,000 a year.

More affluent households are now driving the growth of the chain, which is planning 200 more stores. These more upscale households are shopping at Family Dollar to save money, wanting to preserve their affluence or worried about their continued livelihoods.

Colorado setting up for an Olympic bid
DENVER – Colorado politicians have begun to frame the terms under which Denver and Colorado will seek to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. They’re asking for clear indication of public support, and they expect the business community to step up to take leadership.

Gov. John Hickenlooper told The Denver Post there must be clear dividends for the state. He cited improved exercise programs and transportation improvements.

“It could prove to be a powerful incentive to find a solution to solving the challenge of getting up to the mountains on I-70 during the weekends,” he said.

Salt Lake City and Whistler both gained substantial transportation improvements prior to hosting the Olympics in 2002 and 2010 respectively. In Salt Lake’s case, it got federal funding for expansion of light rail and for a substantial improvement to the interstate highways that bisect the metropolitan area.

Hickenlooper said neither Denver nor Colorado would be eager to assemble a bid on their own, because government resources are badly depleted by the down economy. That’s where the business community would really need to come in to help. “If the people of the state seem willing, my suspicion is the business community will step in,” he said.

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock had similar sentiments. “It’s a very expensive process to go after,” he told The Post.

Former Gov. Dick Lamm, who led the drive in 1972 to end the state subsidy for the 1976 Olympics, resulting in withdrawing the offer to host the Games, remains skeptical. “The history of the Winter Olympics has been soaked in red ink,” he said. “But I know that those five … rings are so glittery that they can distort people’s judgment.”

New airport goes on hold in Sun Valley
HAILEY– Efforts of tourism promoters in the Ketchum-Sun Valley area suffered another blow this past week when the Federal Aviation Administration announced it was suspending work indefinitely on the environmental review for a new airport.

Concerns about impact to sage grouse, as well as rising costs, were cited. Since 2006, the costs of the new airport have increased from $107 million to $314 million. As well, the FAA says that compensating for loss of habitat for sage grouse would be problematic. The grouse became a candidate species for federal protection last year, due in part to fragmentation of habitat.

The Ketchum-Sun Valley market is currently served by an airport at Hailey, located about 10 miles from the resort, but it has many limitations. Last winter, about 30 percent of all resort guests arrived via the Hailey airport, called Friedman Airport, with another 30 percent arriving via airports in Twin Falls, about 90 minutes away, or at Boise, about three hours away.

What happens next is unclear, but the Idaho Mountain Express focused on new approaches to a more limited expansion of the existing airport at Hailey. An existing agreement governing airport operation at Hailey is premised on the idea that it will not be expanded.

Plans to develop a new airport stemmed largely from determinations by the FAA that Friedman, the existing airport, does not meet safety standards for handling certain types of large aircraft. A waiver was granted for certain conditions.

But Rick Baird, manager of the airport, noted that Sun Valley may lose service, because regional carriers aren’t purchasing the sort of aircraft that are needed to provide service to Friedman Airport.

Hotel developer downsizes plans
KETCHUM, Idaho – Developers of a giant resort complex at the base of the Sun Valley ski area have returned before town officials in Ketchum, asking them to authorize a much smaller project.

No financing has yet been found to build the 800,000-square-foot project, said attorney Ed Lawson, representing Helios Development. Helios now wants a 250,000-square-foot reduction. Before, it had said it needed more to make the numbers work.

Original plans called for a nine-story luxury hotel with 120 rooms located along a nine-hole golf course and with workforce housing for 93 employees. In addition to rooms, the recreational amenities have been pared. Four tennis courts, instead of eight, are planned, and the golf course reduced to a practice facility, reports the Idaho Mountain Express.

The developer also wants Ketchum to waive the front-ended workforce housing requirements, to be replaced by an in-lieu fund generated by a tax on the sale of merchandise at the property.

Aspen pushes affordable project
ASPEN – While there are many off-ramps, Aspen city officials have moved forward on the second phase of an affordable housing project called Burlingame Ranch.

This next phase would consist of 167 affordable housing units built during the next five to six years. However, the city is not looking to start construction for at least another year.

The Aspen Daily News reports that a key question for city officials is how soon the units will be needed. About 190 people put their names on a pre-sales list.

Still, there are worries about saturation of the market. An existing owner of deed-restricted housing earlier this summer urged the city to wait on new housing, lest the market be diluted and no buyers would be available should he want to sell his unit.

Chris Everson, the affordable housing program manager, said the city may also look at job growth and income distribution statistics in considering whether to go forward with more housing.

Boutique hotel to tap geothermal heat
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. – Wells drilled under Mammoth Lakes could melt the snow on sidewalks and warm the rooms of the 54-room Handmade Hotel Mammoth View.

Planning commissioners recently approved the project, which also has 28 units called “eco cabins” and another 24 condominiums called “eco lofts.”

Developer of the project is Britannia Pacific Properties, a Sacramento-based real estate investment company. The parent company, London-based

Lewis Trust Group, owns and manages more than 4,000 rooms at hotels in the United States, Israel and Thailand, among them a Ritz-Carlton in Palm Beach and a Doubletree in Atlanta.

The Sheet reports high words of praise at the planning commission from Rick Phelps, director of the High Sierra Energy Foundation. He said the project could become a showcase for the rest of the nation. Instead of “buying wind credits in Montana,” he said, the hotel would produce its own renewable energy. He advocates creation of a geothermal district, to more extensively tap the abundant underground heat at Mammoth Lakes.

How soon the hotel gets built, however, is an open question. The paper reports the applicant wants an extension of its legal entitlements. Normally, a developer has only two years or so to get something built.

Concerned caller reports wolf in Utah
PARK CITY, Utah – A wolf, said the caller, had wandered down a street in a local subdivision and into a garage, and left. But the local wildlife authorities doubt the story. More likely, it was a husky or a German shepherd.

“I would be extremely shocked if it was a wolf,” said Bruce Johnson, a state wildlife officer. “This is not normal wolf behavior.”

Wolves have ventured into Utah from the Yellowstone region, and one was living last year in the Uintah Range, about an hour east of Park City.

Whistler language students denied visas
WHISTLER, B.C. – Students seeking to study French at a language school in Whistler have been denied visas.

Paul Girodo, a consultant who aids the Sea to Sky International Language School, says four people from the UK, four from Australia and one from the United States who had been in Canada on visitor visas were denied the student status for various reasons.

In an interview with Pique Newsmagazine, he claimed that immigration officials have an “institutional bias” against student visa applicants. The newsmagazine offered no response from Citizen and Immigration Canada.
– Allen Best