Mountain Town News

Telluride hears hotel pitch

TELLURIDE, Colo. – A developer who thinks he can entice a high-end hotel operator like a Marriott or Starwood is courting Telluride, and Telluride is interested.

But Randy Edwards tells the town council he needs 50 units, not just the 37 that current zoning allows, to interest Marriott or Starwood. The location is on an existing parking lot along the town’s main street.

“The Marriott has its Autograph line of hotels, but it uses the same reservation system, which is a beast,” Edwards told the Telluride Town Council, speaking to the marketing power of the hotel chain.

“Right now, we only have one Marriott hotel in a Colorado ski town, and that’s in Vail. And they run at around 85 percent occupancy. They have Marriott rewards holders that might come during shoulder seasons.”

Rooms would average 375 square feet in size, notes The Telluride Watch.

Telluride’s two newspapers say the town council didn’t say yes to the concept, tentatively called Hotel Ajax. For one thing, there isn’t a formal proposal. And the waiver from zoning would likely draw opposition. But the council is clearly interested. The town has shed full-service hotel rooms, although a high-end hotel was built several years ago at the adjoining town of Mountain Village.

Telluride puts $$ into renewables

TELLURIDE, Colo. – Little by little, Telluride continues to put money into renewable energy. The town government’s most recent plan is to purchase solar panels for the town’s extensive affordable housing, in which 20 percent of residents live.

The panels wouldn’t be on the housing units themselves. Telluride sits in a box canyon, and some places get absolutely no sunshine on the short days of winter.

A much better place is 80 miles west, in the desert-like Paradox Valley. There, a company called Clean Energy Collective has a solar farm with 4,784 photovoltaic panels. The town is buying 475 of them, at a total cost of almost $330,000.

Residents of the affordable housing units can opt directly into the ownership themselves, but their ownership of the panels will not go with them when they leave the deed-restricted units. Rather, ownership of the panels will stay with the units

Telluride’s town government earlier purchased 215 panels in the solar array in the Paradox Valley to offset electricity used in municipal operations. The town has taken a variety of other steps, including a small hydro system at the water treatment plant.