Steamboat springs chugs toward revitalization: some see another 'Aspen' if growth is restricted.

• Author: Titus, Stephen
• Position: Who Owns Colorado?

HARRY MARTIN IS ON ONE KNEE, FITTING A CUSTOMER FOR A NEW PAIR of custom insoles for her ski boots. His store, Steamboat Ski and Bike Kare, is a renovated gas station but it is clearly popular with locals. The rustic, grungy style is typical Steamboat, but developers and business owners like Martin are working to change that.

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In a few months, Steamboat Ski and Bike kare will move into Martin's new store in the center of town and go from 2,000 square feet of sales space to 5,000 square feet of modern retail bliss. Martin purchased the corner lot, left vacant for almost 10 years when the previous building was leveled in a gas explosion, for $475,000. His new building at Fifth Street and Lincoln Avenue will come with a 1,900-square-foot residential loft and another 4,600 square feet of office space.

"Downtown is just a fantastic summer location," Martin said. "People come in the winter, but everyone comes in summer to hang out because of the weather."

In fact, according to city sales-tax records, 42 percent of the town's revenue comes during the summer months, while most ski resorts see 28 percent to 35 percent of their revenues during the warm months. And Steamboat is no slouch during ski season, logging more than 1 million skier days.

Martin's project is one of several revitalization efforts that are gradually turning Steamboat into a top-shelf destination.

Of course, none of this is coming easily. Developers say a battle between anti-growth forces at the city and developers of both affordable and market-rate projects make building anything in town expensive and difficult.

"The new people in the (city) planning office are very anti-growth," said Ellen Hoj of the Regional Affordable Living Foundation. "They don't know what they're doing, but they're creating an Aspen. It'll look great but no one will live here."

Hoj and others were behind the West End Village affordable housing project. Hoj said it took five years of negotiations with the city before they could break ground in the summer of 2003 on the 30-acre, 107-unit project.

While private developers are again making investments in the town, the ski resort has been slow to recover from a slump in the destination ski industry that seemed to hit the Steamboat resort's parent company, American Skiing Co., harder than many other Colorado resorts. Several years of losses at ASC, which also owns seven resorts around the country, have left the company without resources to...