Developer Selection After a robust selection process, Gunnison County is moving forward with negotiations with Servitas as the development partner for the Whetstone Community Housing project. Servitas is a minority and woman-owned Limited Liability Corporation. Servitas was selected based on their alignment with the goals and guiding principles for Whetstone, and the financial strength and experience of their team. Servitas was established in 2001 and is a well-capitalized private company providing a full scope of real estate services. With 56 employees and a national reach, Servitas has successfully undertaken housing projects of all sizes across the U.S. Servitas specializes in Public Private Partnerships. Servitas has delivered and is currently developing more than 20,000 beds in a variety of types, from three-story wood-frame walkup buildings to nine-story concrete and steel high-rises. Reasons for selecting the Servitas team as the development partner for Whetstone include:
The community also provided positive feedback on the Servitas team during the developer open house in Crested Butte on May 10th, 2023. During this meeting, each of the five shortlisted development teams presented their proposed approach for Whetstone, then community members were able to ask questions directly of the development teams in an open house format and to provide feedback to the County team via an online form. 83% of survey respondents indicated that the Servitas team would be a good fit or somewhat a good fit for the community, while none of the survey respondents said that Servitas would not be a good fit, as illustrated below. All of the community feedback on the shortlisted developers can be found on the project website here.
Annexation Process On June 20, 2023, the Town of Crested Butte’s Town Council held a work session on the non-financial elements of the potential annexation of Whetstone. As a follow up to this discussion, the Town of Crested Butte has developed a survey to understand community sentiment around annexation of this affordable community into the town boundaries. Annexation is a process that would amend the town boundaries to include the Whetstone parcel thus bringing service and other town resources to the community. Currently the Town and County are weighing the pros/cons of a potential annexation including costs, benefits, and most importantly timing of a potential annexation. We would appreciate community stakeholders and supporters of Whetstone to provide feedback as well. Our project has great momentum and community support, and the project team desires to continue that momentum in order to get housing built as soon as possible for the many people who are currently rent burdened and experiencing stress related to housing costs and lack of supply. We feel this is a balancing act that requires swift action to design and build a project as quickly as possible while minimizing extra costs and delays. At the same time, the Town is considering providing utilities to Whetstone, which provides an enormous benefit to the project. The County and the selected developer, Servitas, support annexation at some point but believe that it is critical that the project be allowed to complete the County’s review and permit process and begin construction. The County believes that once construction is substantially complete that would be an appropriate time for annexation; however annexation sooner may cause delays that could threaten the viability of the project. For more information about the County process, please contact John Cattles at [email protected]. The Town has designed a survey specifically asking about non-fiscal impacts of annexation and exploring community sentiment around design, building code, and other considerations. If you would like to express your thoughts about annexation, please participate in the Town’s survey which is available here; it will be open until July 31, 2023. There will also be another Council meeting on August 21, which you can attend in-person or virtually. Thank you to those of you who continue to be involved in and support this important community project. We are looking forward to working with the Servitas team to make Whetstone become a reality. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to Marine ([email protected]) if you have any questions or feedback or want to learn about these processes. Comments are closed.
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