Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — If the signs were gone, a person should not be able to tell that a proposed gas station at the east entrance of town was part of the Shell franchise.

Those were the guidelines that applicants Steve and Denise Peterson were given and which they followed for the South Side Station along U.S. Highway 40 and Weiss Drive. In the last round of approvals, the city staff recommended the Architectural Review Commission approve the gas station's architecture, landscape and sign plans.

The plans include a 4,000-square-foot convenience and liquor store with two gasoline canopies and a 600-square-foot detached car wash with a self-service bay.

The gas station has created some controversy. In June, the City Council first denied, then tabled, the development application because of the gas station's proximity to a city water source.

Six months later the council approved the development plan, after consultants said the site was outside the influence zone of two public infiltration galleries, which are a kind of horizontal well.

The development was one of the projects that started Council-man Bud Romberg asking when Steamboat would have enough gas stations and liquor stores. The question led to a community-wide discussion on "when enough is enough."

But City Planner Jonathan Spence said Thursday's discussion would stick with the site's building and landscaping plans.

"The only thing on the table is landscaping, architecture and signage," he said.

Under the city code, the developers could not present a building plan that had franchise architecture. The guidelines stipulate that if the signs of a building were taken off, the building's architecture would not make it identifiable as part of a franchise such as Shell.

"Everything is in line for what the code asks for," Spence said.

Both the main building and car-wash building have flat roofs and are rectangular shaped with an almost western facade.

The plans show the building materials to be split-face concrete block, accent block and brick, stone and steel and the roof to be made of core-ten steel. The building's colors will be two different tones of gray block, deep red accent brick and sandstone columns.

After the plan is passed by the Architecture Review Commission, the same board as the Planning Commission, it goes to the council.

In other business, the Arch-itecture Review Commission will look at the exterior renovation to the three-story condominium buildings that are part of the Harbor Hotel and sit on the northeast corner of Eighth Street and Yampa Avenue.