Have questions on ERS? Get answers HERE
On January 5th, 2010, the town of Eagle, Colorado will have the opportunity to vote on it's future. When I moved to Eagle in 2002, after 20 years in two other spots in the Colorado high country, I moved here for a reason. I moved to Eagle for the quality of life and the small town feel of an incredible town full of incredible people. Not long after arriving here, talk of a new Big Box store development began, and a group of misguided and money hungry developers, (Trinity/RED) came to Eagle and somehow thought it would be a good idea to build this above rendition here at the entry way into our town. So, if you are not familiar with this ERS project I will ask you why you would support this project in our small mountain town which has a Target as it's big box draw, keeping in mind we have a Target thirty miles to the west of Eagle in Glenwood Springs as well as a Target in Silverthorne which is just fifty miles to the east of Eagle. And then there are these issues...
-of the 550,000 sqft of commercial space, it will all be leased. There is zero opportunity for ownership of retail space. Where does all that lease money end up? Somewhere outside of Colorado.
-The majority of the jobs created by Eagle River Station will be low to middle waged non skilled positions which will not support enough people to buy homes at current market prices (and we are in a downturn at this time), or make it affordable to enter the rental market here in the Valley.
-With no requirement to finish the "new" I-70 interchange for this project, all construction traffic will flow through the Chambers Ave corridor for many years to come, a nightmare.
-Construction of this project does not have to begin for three years, and lease space must be 60% pre-leased. In this or any economy how will the developer accomplish this task when the town of Eagle could not even support a STARBUCKS. Starbucks lasted one year and was gone due to lack of support.
-Nothing about this development fits into the current Eagle lifestyle. Yes, we should have development on this parcel, but Eagle River Station is NOT the direction we want here. We need SMART GROWTH NOT URBAN SPRAWL.
-Impact on the current downtown business corridor will be devastating. Eagle River Station is located two miles from the current downtown business district, with ZERO plans for traffic flow to what is our current downtown core. Current local business owners will have zero opportunity to own a retail space in the Eagle River Station Big Box nightmare as 100% of the retail space again will be LEASE ONLY.
-The "Bluffs" development will be impacted by night lighting of this monsterous 88 acre complex after dark. This is contradictory to what many people who live in Eagle want to see in their town.
-The impact of trash from the construction and use of the Eagle River Station big box mall will be substantial as all loose trash and garbage produced from this project will end up in the Eagle River which runs directly adjacent to this development. This is what happened to the Blue River in Silverthorne in the 1980's when the "Factory Stores" were built. I was an outfitter in that valley and watched the degradation of the river corridor during and after development there. Eventually, a massive river bed renovation project had to take place there due in part to the adverse effects of the "Mall" on the river corridor.
-If you live in the valley, you know this is prime Elk wintering ground as the local heards are regularly seen feeding and wintering EXACTLY where Eagle River Station is proposed to be built.
-This is an ugly project both physically and philosophically.
I vote NO on Eagle Rvier Station.












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