Baby steps; magic Mills

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

By Jake Nichols

The ultimate proposal
Jackson Hole, Wyo.-This four-hour marathon had everything. Tears and laughter and a standing-room-only crowd moved to a standing ovation. Even the ordinance list ran so long new letters were added to the alphabet - by power of yet another ordinance, of course. And the headliner of the show, developer S.R. Mills and his proposed makeover of Painted Buffalo Inn and the old Kashman’s, took a few baby steps toward a 156,000-square-foot, five-star hotel.

The new and best (and biggest) of the old West
Mills and his team swooped in with a sense of purpose. Armed with charts, graphs, 3-D models, traffic analyses and a dazzling powerpoint presentation, Mills could have sold oil to the Saudis. His crew settled in, plugged in and made themselves an incident command center for their 45-minute presentation in front of a ‘wowed’ council and skeptical gallery. There was even one person, a Jen or Jan, dedicated to do nothing but carry in the ‘Holy Grail’ model and carry it back out.

Mills figured he’d need all the help he could get trying to stuff the equivalent of Baggs, Wyo., into 1.75 acres at 325 W. Pearl Ave. and 340 W. Broadway Ave. Fitting a 163-key hotel, bar and restaurant, fitness spa, and assorted commercial and residential spaces into a half block required finesse, four stories and nearly 49 vertical feet. The crowd gasped.

But Mills thought of everything and said all the right things. “We have had a lot of conversation with neighbors,” he said. “We are focusing on the town’s strategic intentions … and we learned that Jackson is one- of-a-kind.” Seeking to use the ill-fated planned mixed-use development, or PMD, Mills even admitted he was up against it. “We understand the PMD is a subjective tool that has a lot of power. And it is not always easy to maneuver projects through the PMD.”

But Mills had assembled the New York Yankees of a development team. Fearing his all-star, Denver-based architectural firm, JG Johnson, wouldn’t know its way around the nooks and crannies of Jackson’s local building scene, he enlisted the help of the valley’s talented and respected draftsman, John Carney. He also hired urban planner Bonny Hershberger to handle touchy things like streetscape and pedestrian flow. Finally, Mills added a parking/traffic consultant named Jeff, who regurgitated Urban Land Institute studies concerning parking a big hotel in a resort town.

Sticking points included an alley vacation, on which the entire project hinged, and parking the monstrosity, which Mills said could be done in 98 underground spaces if his valets used their wits and brass shoehorns. And where would the valets live, not to mention the housekeepers, maintenance men and bartenders?

“In the town, we are doing way too much commercial development which is driving more and more need for housing in the valley,” said Barry Sibson during the public comment phase. “This is just one of many [projects] that are inappropriate for the valley.” Sibson guessed the development would call for at least 100 employees, but Mills put the number somewhere in the eighties.

The usual development watchdogs also weighed in. Larry Comer, Armond Acri (Save Historic Jackson Hole), and Franz Camenzind (Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance) spoke out against the idea of such projects and their utilization of the muddled PMD tool, while acknowledging that Mills had brought one handsome project to the table. It’s not the applicant’s fault nobody likes the PMD, Greg Miles countered while speaking as a private citizen on behalf of Mills.

In the end, the council was worried about under-parking the structure. They challenged the applicant to spend the half-million dollar fee-in-lieu for parking on more actual parking. They also hemmed and hawed over the employee housing – 7,100 square feet split into seven to 11 units on site - wondering if that couldn’t be beefed up more. The master plan approval was continued until July for yet more revisions.
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Baby steps; magic Mills | Planet JH News Article: Council Chronicles

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