Over opposition from the mayor and a vocal group of residents, the Dillon Town Council voted 4-2 on Tuesday, March 19, to approve plans for a major new development on the Dillon Reservoir waterfront.

Dozens of residents filled Dillon Town Hall for the public hearing on the five-story structure with 200 condominium units, three restaurants and retail spaces proposed at 626 Lake Dillon Drive, where the Best Western Ptarmigan Lodge and defunct Arapahoe Cafe currently stand.

While some council members saw the project proposed by developer Jake Porritt as an opportunity to start to redevelop the town core, other council members said it was an abdication of the town’s character.

“Big but beautiful, beautiful but big,” council member Brad Bailey, who voted to approve the project, said. “That’s the conundrum we face here tonight with this building.”

Porritt described the project as “a long time coming,” noting that he first approached the town more than a year and a half ago. He said the project aims to help the town achieve its goals, including the redevelopment of the town core.

Last year, the Dillon Town Council in another split vote approved the establishment of metropolitan districts for Porritt’s plans to redevelop downtown. A metro district is a quasi-governmental unit that allows the developers who establish them to finance the public infrastructure — like roadway or sewer improvements — necessary to support a project.

Porritt said Tuesday that more than 75% of the taxbase for the metro districts will be generated by the project at 626 Lake Dillon Drive. The 200 condo units there will be “branded residences,” meaning individual condo owners would own their units but be able to rent them out as a short-term rental through a management company like Marriot, Hyatt or Hilton, he said.

The building will also feature public amenities such as a rooftop terrace, bar, observation deck and ground-level plaza as well as a swimming pool and another rooftop area that would be for residence guests only.

Porritt noted that in response to feedback from the town, he scaled down the project from the 4- or 5-star hotel with a conference center and indoor amphitheater that he had originally proposed for the site. A two-level parking structure beneath the development would provide about 480 parking spaces.

In order to maintain views of the reservoir and mountains from other parts of town, Porritt said his team moved the building 78 feet away from Lake Dillon Drive to create a “view corridor” down the street. The height of the building also steps down as grade steps down to maintain a roughly 55-foot height, he said. The observation deck is about 64 feet in height, according to the application.

Dillon Town Planner Ned West said the area where the project is proposed is in a residential high zoning district, which allows structures to be 35 feet plus 8 feet. But the application for the project was submitted as a planned unit development with one of the requested variances from the zoning code being the height of the building, he said.

The size and scale of the building was among the main concerns raised by residents who spoke during public comment, many of whom lived on the streets directly adjacent to where the project is planned.

“We don’t need towers,” Dillon resident John Gillen, who has owned a condo unit on West La Bonte Street for 22 years, said. “We’ve got 13,000-foot peaks all around us.”

Other residents raised concerns about the traffic the new development could approve, the lack of workforce housing associated with the project and the noise that the development and its construction could create.

Some residents suggested that the project instead be moved to where the post office is or that Porritt first complete work on the condominium project previously known as Uptown 240 that he just purchased in the town core. 

Town council members later clarified that the federal government, not the town, owns the post office property while Porritt said that work to get construction restarted at the Uptown 240 property is already underway.

Not all members of the public were opposed to the project. Cheri Ryan, the executive director of the Summit Chamber, said the project has the potential to “foster economic vitality” and “have a very large impact on sales tax revenue.”

Before voting against the development, Mayor Carolyn Skowyra questioned Porritt for more than a half hour, getting him to agree to several conditions including a commitment to help with the preservation of Arapahoe Cafe, if plans for the former restaurant materialize.

“I think this is a violation of the character of the town for profit,” Skowyra said. “And I think its non-inclusive for Dillon residents.”

Skowyra raised concern that Porritt had promised workforce housing as part of his redevelopment of the town core but that it wasn’t included with the branded residences he proposed.

Porritt said that workforce housing is still planned as part of his redevelopment plans, but, right now, “we aren’t in a position to understand if we can afford it.” The public parking deck that would be associated with the workforce housing would be paid through by the metro district, but there needs to be more certainty around the revenues those districts will generate first, he said.

Council member Kyle Hendricks, who voted against the development, raised concern that while the movie theater in Dillon had once been considered as a location for workforce housing, that is no longer the case.

Hendricks said that the town has been struggling to get control over the short-term rental market for years and that adding another 200 short-term rental units is “not smart.” He also called on his fellow council members to hold off on a vote on the development until a new town council is seated next month. But the council did not postpone the vote.

Council member Tony Scalise — who voted for the development — said that he believes the project will help accelerate the redevelopment of the town core.

“I honestly think that if we turn this down, it will be the death of this town, no one else will come in here and want to deal with a council that doesn’t want to do anything,” Scalise said. “I think this project can jump start this town.”