Silverthorne's new downtown area is key to growth says Ann Marie Sanquist

Silverthorne's new downtown area is central to growth says Ann Marie Sanquist

BrokerIPTV-Mark Eibner: This is Mark Eibner with Broker IPTV and we are up at the Summit Association of Realtors and the Summit Chamber of Commerce looking at some local issues here in Summit County and specifically I am fortunate enough today to have one of the members running for the Silverthorne Town Council, Ann Marie Sanquist. And Ann Marie wonder if you could maybe talk briefly about one or two critical issues facing the Silverthorne community up here?

Ann Marie Sanquist: We have several issues. Silverthorne does not have a property tax, so we are dependent on the sales tax in town for revenue and to keep our county for our town services going. What we are looking to do is try to enhance our tax base. We want to encourage business and growth in our town. Silverthorne doesn't have a downtown area, at this point of time. We would like to see a downtown core developed. I have served on the Silverthorne Planning Commission for over a year now, we have been working on a new comprehensive plan for the town and that will include the town core that has a pedestrian area, side walks, we would have on street parking. We are looking at mixed use where you have retail on the bottom and then residential on the top and be able to increase the density a little bit in the area, so that would create some growth potential. Well, Silverthorne is sort of long and narrow town, we've got both the highway, highway 9, that runs through the town and then we also have the river that runs through the town and river is actually a great asset to Silverthorne is one that we are not really fully using right now. It is kind of our town plan that we will start to use with river. We want the river to be accessible to all of our residents and we all to use it. So, if they want to come down in the morning and have in cup of coffee and sit by the river, that is accessible for them. Right now we see a lot of our residence leaving Silverthorne and going to other towns to use those type of amenities. So, for us, it starts with river and then across the highway, is where we are looking to center the town, possibly increase the height requirements, so that the builders can come in and make it profitable for them to want to build.

Mark Eibner: Great, thank you Ann Marie, been a pleasure.

Ann Marie Sanquist: Thanks, Mark.

Posted on April 09, 2008 20:49:00 by Blog Author