Alpine: Planned, Not Built
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
By Sam Petri
Jackson Hole, Wyo.-The times they are a-changin’. At least they are in Alpine, Wyo.
Just north and west of the Snake River, near Alpine Junction, four new subdivisions are in the works: Snake River Junction with 198 condo units on 44 acres, Targhee Landing with 89 twin-home townhouses on 15 acres, Alpine Palisades with 99 single-family home lots on 68 acres, and Alpine Meadows with 156 single family home lots on 105 acres. Alpine Airpark, an existing subdivision surrounding a refurbished airstrip within Alpine Village, will soon have 42 finished homes and has capacity for a maximum of 70. Alpine Village is on 315 acres and is a less dense residential community.
Although each development is in a different phase, all told, there will be 623 new dwellings in North Alpine – an area that will be partially annexed into the Town of Alpine, where, according to the 2000 Census, just 550 people live in 217 households.
With no land left to build attainable homes in Jackson Hole, and with high demand in the attainable market for working-class people, developers have been looking to build in the next closest place to the Hole – and still turn a buck.
The redesign of Hwy. 26/89 through the Snake River Canyon shortened the commute time and increased safety on the 35-mile stretch of road between Jackson Hole and the bedroom community, and now Alpine is beginning to have it’s day.
Alpine residents may roll their eyes at the bedroom community stigma, but all of the development right now is caused by economic leakage from Jackson Hole. All the jobs are in Jackson Hole; even the mayor is part of the 60 percent commuter population. If Jackson Hole didn’t have a housing crisis, there would be no reason to build dense subdivisions in Alpine – there would be no demand – but if Alpine can handle it, it is bound to attract businesses, expand its town boundary, and turn the bedroom community into a community of its own.
Some call it hype, but in many ways Alpine mirrors Jackson Hole. In the end, once the town is built out, it could be another astronomically priced market like Jackson Hole. That’s a good thing for people looking to make a buck in the real estate game, if they can afford to buy now.
You wouldn’t guess a boom was going on in Alpine if you drove through it today. North Alpine, the area to be developed just across the Snake River from Alpine proper, isn’t connected to Alpine’s wastewater treatment facility.
On top of that, there is a moratorium on new hookups to Alpine’s current waste water treatment plant, which is out of date, over capacitated and experiences wide fluctuations in water usage in the morning and evening. This is slowing the new development, but only temporarily.
By September 2008, Alpine’s new water treatment plant is supposed to be finished, whereupon all the new developments in North Alpine will be able to get online and flush along with the rest of the community. In the meantime, North Star Utility, a privately held public utility company, has plans to build its own temporary water treatment plant. Five developments in North Alpine have signed on to hook up with it so far, according to NSU.
“A lot of this development in Alpine is dependent on the new water treatment plant,” said Lincoln County Planning and Zoning Director John Woodward. “It’s a field of dreams: If you build it, they will flush.”
Woodward noted that you won’t see full-scale development in Alpine until the sewage treatment plant is completed.
“The water treatment plant is supposed to happen by September 2008,” said long-time resident Don Wooden, a member of the town council and a former mayor of Alpine. “As things go in construction in this country … it will probably end up being ’09. But who’s it for me to say, maybe it will happen real slick.”
Wooden, who owns Wyoming Home and Ranch, in the heart of town, stands for planned responsible growth. He knows growth is going to happen, but it’s not going to happen overnight. A 39-year Alpine resident, he’s been around long enough to see the post office relocate, the first town well get drilled, the first tax levy, the town get incorporated and to see the real estate prices sky-rocket.
“Back when I was first in real estate, you could buy any house you wanted,” he recalled. “Cabins along [Greys River Road] went for $30,000, and lots over in Palace Park subdivision for $2,500 a piece. I made $75 dollar commissions on $2,500 lots and at one point I sold 23 of them in a bundle at one time.”
Of course, those were mid-’80s prices, but the same lot sales are happening now.
“The demand for growth has outstripped the services at this time,” said Lisa Paddleford, administrative assistant to Mike Halpin of Alpine Junction LLC, the managing developer of Alpine Meadows. Halpin is also vice president of the Meridian Group in Jackson and has started the North Star Utility. He was not available for comment for this story. “When the permanent plant comes online all waste water will be redirected to that facility,” said Paddleford.
Because WYDOT would not allow Halpin to hang a sewage line on the bridge spanning the Snake River, he has secured a permit from the Department of Reclamation to directionally drill a sewage line under the river to connect with the town of Alpine’s new sewage treatment plant, which will be located on the east bank once it is finished. Although the area is near a fault line, Halpin has secured the permit to drill. He will pay for the drilling of that pipeline, along with the cost to build NSU’s temporary treatment plant, and then Alpine Meadows’ share of the permanent plant costs.
Despite the lack of a sewage treatment plant, 72 percent of the 156 lots in the 100-acre Alpine Meadows have sold. Land in Alpine meadows has been on sale since August 2005, with parcels released on a limited basis. Once owners break ground in the subdivision, it is up to them to build their houses, within a two-year period, to the specifications of the subdivision.
Most will be 2,500-square-foot homes with an attached garage on .41 acres. Lots have been going for $70,000 to $80,000. Once all is said and done, most homeowners in Alpine Meadows will have $350,000 invested into their property, according to Paddleford. So far, only two homes are in the process of being built.
Five developments in North Alpine have signed contracts with North Start Utilities, but developer Mary McSorley of the 15-acre Targhee Landing subdivision may create her own direct injection wastewater facility to serve her proposed 89 twin-home townhomes. Located in the less dense area of North Alpine that will most likely not be annexed, some neighbors with wells are concerned about her facility; however, her development has just reached Master Concept Plan Approval, and she said she hopes to break ground this spring and build units with a final price of around $300,000.
She is currently working to get approval from the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality.
Developer James Dorsey of Alpine Palisades – the 110-lot single-family home subdivision on 60 acres whose southern boundary nearly touches Alpine Meadows – has a plan similar to Halpin’s.
“People have a 90 percent preference to live in a single family home than live in a condo,” said Dorsey, who claims his development is attractive because Jackson Hole refugees will be more likely to purchase a single-family home in Alpine than a condo or townhome. Eighty-seven percent of Lincoln County is single-family homes, according to Dorsey, so it’s what people are used to.
Although his development is not yet platted, a portion of it will be zoned commercial, like Halpin’s Alpine Meadows. The idea is to have businesses along Hwy. 26 and 89 with residential housing set back from the road. This will also make it more attractive to the town of Alpine to annex these subdivisions.
Bill Weimann bought an abandoned airstrip just down the road from Alpine Meadows one year ago. He started buying as many properties as he could that surrounded the airstrip.
“Anything that was in disarray, I’d buy it, level it and build new,” said Weimann.
After putting a million and a half dollars into airstrip improvements, Weimann developed Alpine Airpark, a type of aviation community where homes line the airstrip and, along with a garage, homeowners get their own airplane hanger. Property values around his airstrip have quadrupled in the past year, according to Weimann. Seven homes sold just last week.
“I don’t want to sell out to a bunch of speculators,” said Weimann. “I’m selling to the end user.”
The homes of Alpine Airpark start around $425,000 and go all the way to $5 million. People from Jackson Hole, Salt Lake City, California and Arizona have bought homes in this unique neighborhood.
“When you land you know you’re somewhere cool,” said Weimann of his developing community.
Right now the homes in Alpine Airpark are using wells and have septic tanks. Tanks are located near the edge of the property so that if and when the town limits reach Alpine Airpark, it will be an easy switch to get online.
“We’re planning for the future,” said Weimann.
However, Paula Stevens, principal planner with the Teton County Planning Department and a member of the Town of Alpine Planning and Zoning Commision who lives in Alpine Airpark, doesn’t see the town’s infrastructure reaching that community anytime soon.
“It’s a low-density residential community,” she said, noting that the Snake River Junction Development and Alpine Meadows were the most likely subdivisions to be annexed by the town due to their commercial lots.
Snake River Junction condominiums has been platted and approved for 198 units. So far, Alpine Development Group has sold five commercial lots along Hwy. 89, and according to its website, www.SnakeRiverJunction.com, is in the process of building 29 condo units. Thirty percent of their development is zoned commercial. The developers were unable to be reached for comment, and did not immediately return phone calls.
Condos and town homes are a relatively new thing for Lincoln County, according to Planner John Woodward. Also new is Abi Garaman’s phase II remodel of Flying Saddle Lodge, which will feature a restaurant, liquor store, 31 new motel units, and – a first for Lincoln County – employee housing.
“We’re running out of land north of the Snake River,” said John Woodward. “In the last three to four years we’ve platted a lot of places. If prices keep escalating, these homes won’t continue to be affordable.”
Of course, all of the platting is beneficial to Lincoln County – which increases its tax revenue with more residents and higher property values – but it has some Alpine residents in shock and awe.
“What Lincoln County sees as beneficial is not always beneficial to Alpine,” said Stevens.
“All of these developments have been approved by Lincoln County,” said Mayor Victoria Cora. “There’s nothing the Town of Alpine can do about it.” Cora also said, “This is the best thing for the town as far as revenue.”
“When you go through rapid growth, you go through emotions, denial is part of that,” Woodward said. “ This took people by surprise, they’ve had to warm up to density.”
So far, the density has yet to materialize. Alpine Junction has yet to need a traffic light, although it soon will. Developers are excited about the Alpine area because of the convergence of three rivers, the Palisades Reservoir, and the National Forest that surrounds the town – attractions they heavily market.
Because of the abundance of natural resources, rumors have been flying about a possible ski area being built in the town of Alpine. Aside from the fact that no application has been put in to the Forest Service for any sort of plan, Woodward said, “In a perfect world is would be a seven year process,” just to push an application through. “It’s not the ski hill that makes the money, it’s the condos,” he added.
District Ranger Ronald Dickemore of the Palisades Ranger District in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest said, “That’s not in the plans for the future. It hasn’t even been considered.”
He did say people in the past have approached the Forest Service every five years or so, but once they realize the steps that would need to be taken to complete the project –including land swaps between two states, in-holdings and Congressional involvement, – he never hears from them again.
As glamorous as a ski hill would be, the real issue involving Alpine real estate development will soon be pumping under the Snake.
Photo by DAN HAARMANCounty approves subdivisions, town deals with effects of growth.
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