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Posted 02.01.2010

Who Owns Colorado: ‘Double’ Eagle takes a breather

Mountain town's population increased 95 percent between 2003 and 2007 - but not much lately

By David Lewis

To understand the recent history of the town of Eagle, Colo., most of what you need to know is contained in two sets of two numbers.

The first is that, in the year 2000, the U.S. Census Bureau counted 3,032 Eagle residents. In mid-2008 it estimated 5,897 people lived there, a 94.5 percent increase.

"We doubled our number of housing units and doubled our population between 2003 and 2007," says town manager and interim town planner William Powell.

The town's master plan was written in 1997 and now is being updated. Meantime, what kind of growth is Eagle anticipating?

Powell laughs. "I don't know. We're doing some utility planning now. When we did our '97 plan we thought our high-growth scenario would be about 5.5 percent per year."

Now, "We were down to just a handful of building permits at the end of 2008 and 2009," Powell says. "It's been a dramatic slowdown. We were a boomtown, but it has dropped off precipitously."
The second set of numbers reflects Eagle's January referendum on the fate of Eagle River Station, a proposed mixed-use development that would have sealed the transformation of the town from a rural outpost to a suburban retail center for Vail, Edwards, Beaver Creek and environs.

Eagle River Station would have been built on 89 acres, and it was to include 572,064 square feet of commercial space around a "lifestyle center," plus a 150-unit suite hotel and 581 multifamily residences. The development was nixed by a margin of 1,175 to 1,109. The developments that preceded the Eagle River Station proposal lived, you might say, so that Eagle River Station might die.
Prior to the Great Recession of 2008-2009, Eagle's growth was remarkable enough to attract the attention of the Christian Science Monitor and "PBS NewsHour," whose series called "Patchwork Nation" paired the town with Riverside, Calif., as an example of a boom-and-bust burg.

Was the PBS/Monitor series fair and accurate?

"No. They interviewed me for probably 30 minutes, and they took probably the one negative comment I made in the whole interview, took the sound bite they wanted that was much more negative than the way I see the markets here," says Doug Seabury, Realtor and partner in Eagle Valley Realty. Then again, Seabury admits he's not overflowing with positivity.

"Don't get me wrong, the market is not fantastic; we are definitely in a down cycle. But (the PBS segment) was definitely a doom-and-gloom portrayal of Eagle, and it's not that bad," Seabury says.
But "we're still at the bottom," Seabury says. "We have hit the bottom, and it's just a matter of how long we're going to be there. We have found that if you price your house, depending on the category of product you have, if you price it at the right point, it will sell.

"The buyers are coming out. Money is available. It all goes back to value right now. It's not about views, it's not about quality of upgrades - granite and stainless steel and all those things that used to matter - right now it's all about value, meaning people are asking, ‘Can I build this house today for this price?' If the answer is ‘no,' they're saying, ‘This is a good deal.' "
In sum, Eagle, the adjacent Eagle Valley and Eagle County as a whole indeed are not doomed, but the real estate market is suffering.

Observers agree home prices are down a minimum of 15 percent to 30 percent from their peak. It's all largely a question of timing, of course. The Bluffs at Eagle, which in 2005-2006 sold lots to builders in maximum units of five, quickly sold out and now is turning some homes over for the second or even the third time. Adam's Rib Ranch, an Eagle Valley project developed by Adam's Mark hotel chain founder Fred Kummer, lies on the other end of the scale. Plans to build 99 homes on its 1,600 acres have slowed to the ceasing point.

Yet there are signs of hope. First, as Seabury notes, "Adam's Rib is a unique situation. The developer/landowner there does not need to sell a single product. He's capable of carrying that forever the way it is."

But he might not have to. The project just sold the first of four spec homes, for $2.75 million.