In Colorado’s mountain towns — where wealthy visitors flock to ski, snowboard, and après the day away — workers face a severe housing shortage.
Booming demand for high-income homebuyers, limited supply of places to live, high construction costs, and stagnant wages put a strain on everyday workers who are unable to afford or find housing. This has led to increased commutes, homelessness, and even people camping in the parking lots of their workplaces to get by.
To alleviate the burden on one of these mountain towns, Steamboat Springs resident and billionaire venture capitalist Mark Stevens has purchased a vacant apartment complex that he is now offering to renters at below-market rates.
Stevens has purchased the 104-unit Riverview apartment complex for $95.3 million, which shakes out to be more than $916,000 per unit, according to The Colorado Sun.
Two buildings now make up the property, which sits on the banks of the Yampa River. It was first envisioned to be a luxury development when a developer planned a condo-style village in 2004, including a hotel, commercial space, and underground parking.
The recession left the parcel of land dormant until about 2018, when it was sold off piece by piece, breaking off into single-family duplexes, a grocery store, and local restaurants, reports The Sun’s Jason Blevins.
Then, last year, developer Gorman and Company built the Riverview apartment complexes, agreeing with the city to include 11 workforce housing units. But in September of this year, Stevens’ company — 970 Steamboat LLC, which was created just a month prior — purchased the whole complex.
The company announced the building would be available to working locals for reduced rates, and leases opened up last month.
The area’s average rent is $4,500, but the apartments at Riverview are listed at $925/month for a studio, $1,600/month for a two-bedroom, and $2,125/month for a three-bedroom.
Anna Allsberry, a school counselor at Steamboat Springs High School, told Realtor.com she would not be able to afford living in her hometown if it weren’t for this development.
“The housing in Steamboat is for sure an issue. It's gotten out of hand just since I moved back after college. It's been a struggle to find anything appropriately priced,” Allsberry told Realtor.com.
“It’s not just low-income folks that are struggling with housing. It’s professionals like doctors and teachers, too.”
At the new development, qualifications for reduced-rate housing are not tied to area median income charts. Those 11 units set aside by the city for specific workforce housing remain, but none of the other units rely on public subsidies. The only requirement to live there is that at least one member of the household works a minimum of 30 hours a week in Steamboat Springs.
“Riverview serves the heart of the Steamboat community by providing true affordability for local workers. This is more than just a place to live in Steamboat, Riverview is about maintaining Steamboat’s culture, community, and connection [with] affordable housing for the neighbors who keep our town strong,” Kimball Crangle, the president of Gorman and Company’s Colorado operations, told The Colorado Sun.
“The people who power this community deserve to live where they work and continue to make Steamboat thrive.”
Stevens is making that possible.
An early investor in companies like Nvidia, Google, and YouTube, Stevens began at Intel during the PC boom and now owns S-Cubed Capital, which has offices in California and Colorado.
In 2013, he and his wife, Mary Stevens, joined “The Giving Pledge,” a philanthropic project led by the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. This pledge represents a promise by some of the world’s richest people to give away the majority of their wealth.
“My wife, Mary, and I feel very fortunate and blessed that we find ourselves, at a relatively young age, to be able to give our time, treasure, and talent to a variety of philanthropic organizations in a substantial manner,” Stevens wrote in a letter upon joining The Giving Pledge.
“We look forward to joining all of the other Giving Pledge families to foster a world that is a much better place in the coming decades.”
And at least for a few dozen families, making the world a better place starts in Steamboat Springs.
“We are pretty much saving a grand a month and living in town now,” Landin Hutchinson, a construction worker who recently moved into Riverview with his wife and 2-year-old son, told The Colorado Sun.
“We feel very, very fortunate. There are a lot of people here who are super appreciative of this opportunity.”
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Header images courtesy of markstevens.com and Jacob/Adobe Stock
