Ketchum URA advances plan for downtown housing project

The company that owns 1 of the greatest-profile vacant qualities in central Ketchum is transferring forward with programs to redevelop the internet site with workforce housing.

The Ketchum Urban Renewal Company is acquiring a strategy to enter a general public-non-public partnership with a authentic estate developer to establish on a established of parcels on Washington Avenue concerning Initially and Next streets. The half-block, which handles around a 50 %-acre promptly north of the Limelight Resort, is presently being leased to the metropolis authorities for use as a community parking lot.

As aspect of the procedure of producing a official “request for proposals”—or RFP—to solicit and pick a enhancement companion, the URA is doing the job to tell citizens about the venture as very well as get strategies and comments. With that in thoughts, the URA held a neighborhood open up-residence function about the challenge on Wednesday in Ketchum.

The URA is an independent company. It takes advantage of so-identified as “tax-increment financing” to fund a range of advancement tasks in a specified city zone. For a set number of yrs, as home values boost, the financing model directs the sum of raises in home taxes inside the zone to the URA, in its place of to other taxing agencies. The Ketchum URA will be dissolved in 2030.

Priorities of the URA consist of developing reasonably priced workforce housing, supporting infrastructure enhancements, producing parking tons and constructions, and creating other advancements that fortify the tax foundation and inspire private progress.

The URA board has hired a consultant—Boise-based Agnew-Beck—to guide in the preparing procedure for To start with and Washington. The specialist has served the URA evaluate its alternatives for the website and shift the task forward.

With workforce housing a precedence for the URA and the city of Ketchum, the URA employees and board have continuously talked over acquiring cost-effective units at the Washington Avenue web page. In March, the expert proposed just one scenario of constructing a four-story, blended-use housing and professional job with parking that could include things like 35-55 housing units. Some market place-amount models could be incorporated to aid finance the task.

Another state of affairs with just neighborhood housing and parking could have 50-70 housing models, the marketing consultant decided. Developments with 100% group housing in the downtown Local community Core zoning district can make use of a reward to boost the permitted measurement and peak of the challenge.

Suzanne Frick, govt director of the URA, said Thursday that the URA has now narrowed its plans. The agency’s RFP will request for proposals to acquire a challenge with deed-restricted workforce housing, public parking, and probable commercial employs on the floor floor, she claimed. It would make it possible for for “unrestricted” household models on the fourth flooring, she stated.

“The parameters will be further refined primarily based on the community input collected to day,” she explained in an electronic mail.

The metropolis has established that Ketchum will have to have to create or in any other case procure 66-98 cost-effective-housing units for just about every of the upcoming 10 many years to satisfy the need to have for workforce housing.

The upcoming move is creating the RFP, which will define the finalized aims of the project, specifics about the enhancement internet site, and the thorough parameters for finishing the task. The URA has indicated that it designs to problem the RFP by June, with responses thanks in August or September.

The URA board is scheduled to examine the job more at its next meeting at 2 p.m. Monday, April 18, at Ketchum Metropolis Corridor.