State Land Board moves Dowd Junction housing proposal forward in negotiations with Avon
Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily
The stalled town of Avon community housing proposal on a Colorado State Land Board parcel in Dowd Junction took a major step forward on Thursday.
The State Land Board, at its monthly meeting in Lamar, authorized its staff to negotiate a deal with Avon for the sale of approximately 75 acres of the property on both sides of the Eagle River.
Since first being proposed under the auspices of a 2023 state law to facilitate the sale of state land for the purposes of badly needed affordable housing, the Dowd Junction project has moved slowly. The initial proposal was for 700 homes on 98 acres, but the overall costs have since reduced the scope of the project.
Last year, Avon officially received a request for annexation from the state and the town council deemed the parcel eligible for annexation. By then, the project had been scaled back to just 35 acres as competing appraisals for the land further delayed the process.
On Thursday, Avon Town Manager Eric Heil said the town made a motion to purchase 73 acres across both sides of the river based on an average of the two appraisals the town has done on the land. The big sticking point has been the land board’s appraisal from a year ago that came in much higher than the town’s. The land board can now come back with a different price.
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But for Heil, the big news is that the board, which is charged with generating funds for Colorado public schools, has agreed on the property it will dispose of and directed staff to negotiate a price. He hopes the next phase of the negotiation will only take one to two months, after which the price of what’s called a direct disposal will have to be posted publicly for 60 days.
The land board, Heil says, only does two direct disposals a year, meaning it’s not an open bidding process. If a price can be agreed upon, then Avon will talk to its other partners and begin the annexation and development process.
“So that’s the sequence we’re looking at, is that we would take title first and then we would proceed right to annexation and zoning and then figuring out some type of partnership arrangement with Eagle County and the town of Vail,” Heil said in a phone interview.
“So far, everyone says they’re interested. But as you can imagine with property deals, as soon as we’ve got a price and we’re getting it under contract, then it’ll get to the next step of getting real and taking action because then everyone’s got to pull out their checkbook,” he added. “And that’s when we find out who’s really partnering and who’s not. But I think it’s all going to work out.”
Heil added there may be some land-banking funds available for the purchase of the property through a grant application process with the state’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade.
A spokesperson for the land board, in an email on Friday, acknowledged it has taken years to get to this point and also said the parcel authorized for negotiation is slightly larger at 75.7 acres.
“The Board’s decision to authorize staff to negotiate the disposal of the state trust parcel near Dowd Junction reflects years of planning and collaboration with local partners, and we appreciate the continued engagement from the town of Avon, town of Vail and Eagle County,” Colorado State Land Board spokesperson Emily Barbo wrote.
“This approximately 75.7-acre parcel presents an opportunity to explore workforce housing solutions while delivering outstanding value for Colorado’s public schools,” Barbo wrote. “As we enter this next phase, we are excited for solutions that respond to critical community needs. We look forward to continuing these discussions in a way that reflects our fiduciary responsibility and our shared interests.”
Heil said the competing appraisals the project has been hung up on do not all reflect the status of the land, which doesn’t have zoning or water rights.
“It’s not like it’s a prime development property ready to build on,” Heil said. “There are some pretty key entitlement issues not present. And then for community housing, we don’t make money on that. As I was telling them (Thursday), we’re upside down and underwater before we even buy the property.”
The state’s Dowd parcel previously included mobile home housing for Colorado Department of Transportation workers who have since moved elsewhere in anticipation of the community housing project. The town of Vail inked a separate lease for part of the parcel on the south side of the river to store construction materials and fill dirt for its own community housing projects.
