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Planners OK hotel addition

Nick Foster

The 30-year-old, red-and-black-checked carpet was ripped up, and so was the rest of the interior.

The Inn at Steamboat, at 3070 Columbine Drive, was built in 1974 to house 34 hotel rooms. During the past couple of years, owners Dave Zabel and his son, Glen, gutted the interior and reworked several elements of the exterior.

Thursday night, they received final development approval from the Steamboat Springs Planning Commission to construct an additional building so the hotel can meet its growing visitor base.



Dave Zabel said the renovation has helped increase the inn’s visitors.

“You can only do so much with an existing building,” he said. “But we spent an awful lot on the inside. We gutted it and started over.”



The new building at The Inn at Steamboat is three stories, with two condo-like units on each floor, along with a “lock-off unit,” which, for an extra fee, visitors can use as an additional bedroom.

“It’s perfect if you have a bigger family or two families,” Dave Zabel said.

“It gives guests staying at the inn more of a variety of options,” city planner Jonathan Spence said.

The new building will be just north of the original building and feature some similar architectural features, but it will be more up to date, Spence said. The exterior will feature log columns and railings, stone veneer and stucco. Colors for the building will be similar to those of the old building.

Other site improvements include the construction of four additional parking spaces, a new trash enclosure and increased landscaping.

In other business, the Planning Commission unanimously approved a final development plan for an addition to the Steamboat Springs Transit Operations Center at 1463 13th St.

The addition will include 1,050 square feet of office space to the north side of the existing office area and an additional 6,288-square-foot bus storage bay to the east of the existing bus storage bay.

The additional storage space would house buses that have been parked outside overnight, Steamboat Springs Transit Operations Manager Jonathan Flint said.

“In order for them to operate correctly, it’s best to store them inside,” Flint said. “We’ve parked them in the wash bay and next to the building, so we’ve been pretty creative with it. The addition will allow everything to be thawed out overnight, and systems can operate as they were designed to.”

Several buses had to be parked outside because the current number of buses was not anticipated when the Steamboat Springs Transit Operations Center was built in 1983, Flint said. The additional office space is needed for a similar reason, and it will be used primarily as a training area, Flint said.

— To reach Nick Foster call 871-4204

or e-mail nfoster@steamboatpilot.com


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