New apartment building
on Evergreen Parkway
Evergreen is getting an apartment building along the Evergreen Parkway frontage road between the US Bank property and Boone Mountain Sports/Evergreen Brewery.
Construction is expected to start this summer on the building on American Parkway that will have 24 apartments above four commercial units. The one-acre property is already zoned for this use, so it just needs its building plans approved by the county.
The property is being developed by PMG Development in Denver, with rent for the one- and two-bedroom apartments estimated to be between $1,750 and $2,250 a month, according to Bill Downes, broker-owner with Evergreen Commercial Group that is working with the developer.
The apartments will be between 600 and 750 square feet, and 36 parking spaces already exist on American Parkway on the east end of the property.
“Housing is desperately needed here, Downes said. “We need these apartments yesterday.”
Proposal would keep 52 acres pristine
A man who owns three lots totaling 55 acres in Conifer wants to rezone the properties to planned development with a conservation easement on 52 acres, a new duplex on 3 acres and one existing home.
At a community meeting on Feb. 16, property owner Rod Morgan said both the conservation easement to the Mountain Area Land Trust and the planned-development zoning would ensure the 52 acres would remain undeveloped. He said the conservation easement would, for example, protect a bear den on the property.
“I am adamant to preserve and protect and ensure (the den) is not impacted,” he told about two dozen neighbors.
Morgan’s home at 29222 Mary’s Drive would remain, and the duplex would be at 11609 Apache Trail.
In response to neighbors’ questions, Morgan, who serves on the MALT board of directors, said he wanted to raze the farmhouse on the property and build a duplex there to bring in rental income. He said there wasn’t enough room to build two homes because of county requirements for leach fields associated with septic systems.
Since the property already has two wells, it wouldn’t need an additional well for the duplex, he said, noting that if the property remained zoned Agricultural-2, five homes could be built there.
John Erickson, representing a group of neighbors on Apache Trail, said the duplex would change the “fabric of our community” by bringing renters into an area with stable single-family home ownership.
“Why put a duplex on a small lot in a neighborhood that is all single-family?” Anderson asked. “We don’t understand that.”
Morgan said the duplex would be a total of 2,400 square feet, which has a similar footprint to other area homes.
Morgan has not filed a formal rezoning request with Jefferson County. Zoning requests go before the Planning Commission and the county commissioners.