Mountain Village Unveils 15-Year Plan for the Future of the Town

At a vital stage in its development, with more than three quarters of the town built out, the Town of Mountain Village must decide where they want to be in the future. A 15-year-plan task force was therefore formed in the fall of 2008 to develop a meaningful plan for the town to bring the community’s diverse ideas and viewpoints into the process.

The town unveiled its plan on Thursday, August 13th with a public “Big Opportunities Workshop and Open House.” Planning consultants EDAW Inc, an international multi-disciplinary firm that combines design, environment, economics and planning, has been retained to evaluate specific ways to accomplish the ideas. Now that the two-year task force has completed a cohesive visioning process, the time has come to make those concepts into a tangible plan. This workshop was the first step and the next step will be presented to the public in October

10 vision statements won approval and were adopted; you can find more detail on these at www.TownOfMountainVillage.com. They include a call for more vibrancy in the Village center with additional hotel rooms, more parking, a larger retail area and extra employee housing. All are designed to boost occupancy and retail sales, to make the area more user-friendly for commercial and retail operations and to better learn and use resort economics to the town’s advantage. Also under consideration are adding parks, and re-zoning certain land--some of which is currently open space--to offer more density in the areas between the Meadows neighborhood near the driving range and the entry. A suggestion for the gondola to arrive in the retail core area itself rather than on the plaza above it is an interesting idea to get more foot traffic to the “right places.”

Also on the table is an Ecosign Core Revitalization Project to help create a model of economic vitality and infuse the heart of the Mountain Village. The task force and resulting plans has so far been accomplished at a cost of $500,000, paid by Mountain Village Owners’ Association (MVOA). For further information or to add your ideas, please contact me at buzz@fedorka.com.