Now with a more finalized budget for key aspects of construction, Breckenridge officially signed off to work with a local developer to build a neighborhood on the former free skier parking lot down the road from Breckenridge Ski Resort. 

Officials learned at a June 10 meeting phase 1 of the Runway Neighborhood project infrastructure construction will likely cost $24 million. This puts what the town is paying at around $33 million, which is what staff members have previously been estimating. 

During a May 27 Breckenridge Town Council meeting, the developer agreement with Neighborhood Crafters led by Suzanne Allen Sabo received a no vote from council member Dick Carleton driven by what he felt was a lack of a concrete infrastructure budget. The agreement received unanimous approval at the June 10 meeting.

Due to a recently added owner’s contingency, the price for phase 1 is listed at $34 million. This is meant to be a buffer to account for potential cost overruns, and the town still plans for a $33 million subsidy for phase 1, which will yield 81 units of housing geared toward the local workforce.

“This isn’t an easy build … We’re working against (Xcel Energy) high-pressure gas lines, we have old sewer lines out there, so it really does need a fair amount of oversight,” town engineer Shannon Smith said. She added there’s some costs associated with this project that haven’t been in other similar projects because this isn’t officially a “town project,” but the developer’s project, and they have to hire out some positions that they may have used town staff for otherwise. 

Construction administration costs, including bringing on project management staff for oversight, is anticipated to cost $2 million over the span of three-and-a-half years. There’s also allowances for $2.3 million of work to fix excavation on the site, and another $2 million for electrical work for Xcel Energy. 

Council members Todd Rankin and Jay Beckerman wondered if there were ways to make the project more efficient, or “5% better,” as Rankin put it. Beckerman wondered if there could be scheduled third-party budget reviews and spending-related check-ins. 

 “Are we doing enough to look out for our fiduciary responsibility?,” he said when explaining his reasoning. 

Rankin agreed and thought it could be useful to do more reviews in the preliminary stages of the project to determine if any more costs could be cut. 

Housing project manager Melanie Leas said that could add delays and expressed concern it could make the project 5% less efficient, as opposed to 5% more efficient. Smith added town staff always tries to find how to make things 5% more efficient or 5% better. 

“Do you want to cut the project down?” Smith said. “That’s the only way I can say ‘yes, we can’, but we would have to do 95% of the project.”

While discussing terms of the development agreement, town attorney Keely Ambrose highlighted points about the plans for deed restrictions to address concerns brought up by a constituent. At the May 27 meeting, resident Larry Crispell made a public comment related to the plans to finance the project and drew attention to a situation that occurred decades ago, worrying about history having the potential to repeat itself.

His concern surrounded subordinating deed restrictions to the financing of the project, which is currently the plan. The Runway Neighborhood will use a loan for financing, and subordinating the deed restriction means the loan’s lender would have the ability to take away the deed restriction if the property were to be foreclosed on for some reason. Taking away the deed restriction would remove the affordability measure on the units and make them priced at market-rate, which could defeat the purpose of building a neighborhood the local workforce can afford.

He said this happened with the Grandview condo development when it was foreclosed on, and the units weren’t preserved for the workforce as originally intended.

Ambrose said there’s five or six different protections in place to ensure deed restrictions aren’t lost, including right to cure and right to redeem, as well as underlying land zoning mandating what’s built on the land is workforce housing.

She also pointed to a clarifying addition to the developer agreement meant to avoid a situation the developer encountered with the rollout of the Stables Village neighborhood. Stables Village had some cases where people who won the housing lottery to get a unit ended up dropping out right when they were supposed to buy. The addition to the Runway agreement opens the door for the developer to sell to any qualified buyer after a unit sits vacant due to situations like lottery winners dropping out.

The Runway Neighborhood was long planned to be a 148-unit neighborhood geared toward the workforce featuring a mix of housing types between multi-and single-family homes, but current economic uncertainty led to officials committing to only half of it for now. It was always planned to be done in phases, and officials landed on a first phase with 81 units and a second phase with 67 units. 

Previous projections came in around $150 million for the project overall, with an anticipated $50 million town subsidy if it goes through with both phases. Civil work is expected to break ground in summer of 2025 and vertical construction is planned to start June 2026. The 81 units in phase 1 are slated to be finished in March 2030 and phase 2 in December 2031.

The town struck a deal with the Summit School District to exchange a parcel of land for 35 units of the project to be reserved for district staff to buy. Town staff members say the district will get the 35 units whether both phases happen or not.