Jackson sets sights on the future of downtown

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

By Ben Cannon

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Shades of Jackson Hole, a sunglasses shop, has in the last year occupied four locations around the Town Square. Jan Stuessi, who recently sold the store back to its original owner, has had to pack and relocate her inventory three times. She will continue to manage the store, which has just entered into a five-year lease next door to the Harley Davidson store, just off the Square.

A combination of local market forces - escalating commercial rents and a number of spaces facing inevitable repurposing or redevelopment - has exacerbated the already high pressure of making a retail space work on prime, commercial rental property.
“To me, we are losing our community,” Stuessi said. “You have to remember, there was once a hardware store as well as a pharmacy on the Square. It used to be a town that served the people of the community. Now it’s all about ‘how much can I make off my property.’”

This week the Jackson community will begin in earnest the discussion of how to focus on the downtown area for the comprehensive plan revisions. From 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, May 14, at St. John’s Episcopal Church, consultants with Clarion Associates, a land-use planning firm, will meet with town officials, planners and the public to talk about how the Town of Jackson should evolve, preserve or fortify itself in the coming years.

The story of Jackson’s troubled downtown is much larger and more convoluted than an anecdote culled from one locally owned store in the most trafficked area of town. But just how the a small business - even one that appeals to both tourists and local consumers –can succeed is a question that may come up as the community’s vision for town has the opportunity to be re-imagined.

“As far as planning practice goes, things are done in other communities to preserve businesses that cater to the local population,” said Shawn Hill, an associate planner with the city. But, he added, “whether or not we do that here is anyone’s guess.”

A community going to extensive lengths to tailor a planning vision to ensure the success of local businesses is still a relatively rare phenomenon, according to Lesli Kunkle Ellis, a Clarion consultant. Ellis has been working to cull public input regarding the reworking of the joint comprehensive plan for Jackson and Teton County.

“It can be the role of a comprehensive plan to start to address the issues,” Ellis said in a phone interview from her Fort Collins, Colo., office. “But I think at this point we’ve just skimmed the surface of our purpose.”

Among the foremost issues on the table for the downtown area planning will be building heights.

Currently, buildings fronting the Town Square are capped at three stories; though under a 35-foot height restriction, the seasonally historic visitor destination for t-shirts, high- end wildlife art, rugs, libations and, yes, a greasy cheeseburger, has more of a two-story feel.

Off Square, the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts and parking garage - both community structures completed within the last year – now soar above downtown, at four stories.
The Town of Jackson has a “one size fits all” design mandate, determined by existing structures that provide an architectural context in a given area, according to Town Planner Tyler Sinclair. A board review determines a design’s appropriateness according to a site’s surroundings, though it may be prudent to draft special guidelines for the historic downtown area, he said.

“Is height something we need to be a little more prescriptive on?” Sinclair said, a few days before he and others began to listen to and discuss ideas about how the town might best be envisioned in the comprehensive plan.

Around the Square, residential units are verboten on second and third floors. That is something the community may discuss reconsidering, as the town has more mixed-use development - a nascent trend in more progressive planning - heading its way.
Off Town Square, outside the perimeter of a special planning overlay that helps dictate uses for that historical district, there are currently five new commercial developments either under construction or already through the planning process, Sinclair said. Additionally, four more projects are moving through the town planning pipeline.

To look at the areas undergoing redevelopment off the Square, there is as yet no area that appears predestined to take the brunt of new or revitalized commercial use, according to the town planner.

Though there was some talk in 2007 about the change of hands and pending redevelopment of a stretch of property north of Broadway between Center and King streets - a prime chunk of real estate that hosts quaint, historical homes that house local businesses - Sinclair said no one had approached the town for pre-application talks. He said he had not caught wind of any intent to do so at the moment.

While Wednesday’s meetings will focus particularly on the downtown area, Clarion planners will also present data and ideas and help steer public dialogue through areas of town, such as the so-called ‘Y,’ the intersection of Hwy 89 and Wyo. 22, a mile and a half west of the Square.

Photo by ANDREW WYATT
What does the future hold for the center of town?

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Jackson sets sights on the future of downtown | Planet JH News Article: Development

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