Prospector Place Project Moves Forward; Gears Up For Completion This Year
Trevor Phipps
For years, the lack of available housing in the Cripple Creek area has become a major issue, and one that has commanded main stage attention at virtually every council meeting.
In fact, this shortage of all levels of housing has now reached a crisis stage, according to community leaders.
With the town’s high hopes of becoming a recreation/tourist destination area, and with the recent growth of casino hotel developments, many stress the need for more housing units to attract more residents and workers.
The city has partially opened the door with a more aggressive program to lure more developers through offering more incentives and fee waivers, along with a major push for better infrastructure. This has fueled a spree of future housing plans, with some fairly ambitious bids.
But out of all of the possible solutions and plans discussed, only one major multi-million-dollar project has moved forward and actually broken ground. Starting last July, construction began on a town home complex on the corner of S. First St. and Warren Ave. in Cripple Creek. The project is called the Prospector Place Town Homes, and represents the first stage of the Gibraltar Development, which could become a game changer for future housing and commercial activity in Cripple Creek.
According to the project’s real estate agent Mary Sekowski, the initial project is slated to include 24 town home units spread across four different buildings. “The first one being developed has five units with three-bedroom units on each end and two-bedroom units in the middle,” Sekowski said. “Then on the other end there will be seven units with three three-bedroom units and four two-bedroom units.”
Sekowski stated that the units will be priced in the $400,000 range. The two bedrooms will be listed for $412, 500 and the three-bedroom units will cost $449,000.
The new town homes will not be built specifically for employees but could play a key role in attracting people working in the city. “Their goal in investing in Cripple Creek is to help the housing problem that Cripple Creek has,” Sekowski said.
The lender for the town home plans to offer 100 percent financing so those interested will be able to get into the house without having to come up with a substantial down payment. The town homes will be open to investors wishing to own short term and long-term rental properties and even second homes.
“We are probably going to primarily attract owner occupants that work at the management level and up,” Sekowski said. “You can walk to Chamonix in three minutes we walked it earlier today. So, I think that is particularly appealing.”
According to Jeff Regester with Earth Works Land Development who has spearheaded the construction on the project, the process has been arduous up to this point due to the ground consisting of solid rock two feet down. “We knew that when we were getting into but with hard rock it’s hard to make a schedule,” Regester said. “Because you don’t know how hard the rock is. Some breaks easier and some is more prominent.”
Regester said that he plans to have the first units ready between May and July of this year. Some units might be finished before others, but all of them should be completed this year.
Project Aimed at Filling a Need
According to Brandon Bachik, a partner with Gibraltar Development that is leading the project, the idea of the development culminated more than 30 years ago when Bachik’s father purchased land in Cripple Creek when gambling first came to the city. But then in 2019, the city reached out to the Bachik family and said the city needed help with housing.
“The city of Cripple Creek did a very extensive feasibility study that is a 300-page document,” Bachik explained. “It states that we have jobs, but we have no place to live. It showed the high number of people who are traversing from Colorado Springs to work up here.”
When Bachik got involved, people starting buying up open lots including the spot where the new Prospector Place Town Homes will be built. But he said that the development has proved to be quite a challenge since they started it during the hardest market cycle in the mortgage environment in several years.
“The other thing is that there has been no other multi-million-dollar development besides an MGM publicly traded company coming into a town with no sales,” Bachik said. “So, we are having to put an enormous amount of our own capital in this project because the banks are not willing to take a risk on Cripple Creek yet.”
He also cited an issue with the houses that are currently available in Cripple Creek. Many structures are old and not well-insulated to a point in which homeowners experience high electrical bills during winter months. Bachik said that the homes will be built at the highest energy rating that they can do at the price point they are selling them for.
The town homes will be heated with a propane furnace, but each unit will also have an electric fireplace. “The codes of today are already there,” Bachik said. “To install a window in Texas where I live is about $300 a window. It is double that here because of the elevation we are at and the temperature differentials.”
Future Gibraltar Development Plans
Bachik said that the current development is actually the first of more to come. Bachik said the first property his family purchased was 67 acres on Mount Pisgah on the west side of the town. The city recently completed an annexation process for this area to become part of Cripple Creek.
“That is going to be a $100-plus million-development,” Bachik stated. “It is going to have apartments and commercial buildings. It’s going to potentially have low-income housing that we are working with the city to get grants. It’s going to have town homes just like this as well as probably a gated community with multi-million-dollar homes up on the hill overlooking the Sangre De Cristo mountains.”
For more information about the Prospector Place Town Homes project visit gibraltardevelopments.
