Two hotels set to be built in Ketchum

Two hotels in Ketchum are set to start construction later this year, following the renovation of the most famous lodging in the Wood River Valley, the Sun Valley Lodge.

The groundbreaking for the Limelight Hotel is scheduled for July 10, while site work on the Auberge Resort Sun Valley is due to start in the fall. More air service, and more available financing for projects, has spurred development of the new hotels, according to one of the hotel developers.

While the Sun Valley area has been a resort community for decades, it hasn’t had new hotel or high-end lodging development since 1992.

Arlene Schieven, president and chief marketing officer for tourism promotion group Visit Sun Valley, said added flights to Hailey, including new flights from San Francisco and Denver, and a longer summer season of Seattle flights has  helped tourism and hotel development efforts.

Jack Bariteau, the developer of the Auberge, said the added air service helped bring Auberge Resorts Collection, the operator of the hotel, on board.

“It’s enabling us to compete with other mountain ski resort markets,” Bariteau said.

Bariteau, the managing member of Trail Creek Fund, a Wood River Valley development company, has been waiting a long time to build the new hotel. He bought the land in 2004, first got local government approval for the project in November 2008, and has spent years since trying to secure financing, a combination of private equity and construction debt.

“That’s a recession-created wait,” he said. While capital markets have improved in recent years, Bariteau said it’s still difficult to get financing. “The perception that things are back to normal in the financing markets is not correct,” Bariteau said.

The $54 million, 150,000-square-foot Auberge Resort Sun Valley will have 62 rooms and 14 residences, a restaurant and bar, and spa and conference facilities. Bariteau said he initially wanted run the hotel without a national operator like Auberge, but he discovered last year that independent hotels have a harder time getting financing.

“The brand association with us has made all the difference in the world,” Bariteau said.

Auberge Resorts Collection, based in Mill Valley, Calif., operates eight hotels, five in the western U.S., and has four other resorts under development.

Bariteau said demolition and excavation for a two-level underground parking garage will start in September or October, continuing until winter weather halts work. Erecting the hotel will start next spring.

“We frankly have decided, after much conversation, that it’s not worth trying to fight during the winter to bring this building out of the ground,” Bariteau said. The building will be built in partnership by Conrad Brothers Construction of Ketchum and Swinerton Inc., a San Francisco-based firm. Bariteau said it has better bonding capacity to support a large-scale project.

Both the Bariteau and the Limelight will be built at the intersection of Main and River streets in Ketchum. The Limelight will be built by McAlvain Construction of Boise. That new hotel’s developer, Aspen Skiing Co., has run hotels in Colorado and received a state tax incentive worth up to $132,000 for the $60 million project. The hotel will have 99 hotel rooms and 14 condominiums  for sale when it’s finished.

The Limelight is expected to open in 2016 while the Auberge is due to open in 2017.

The Sun Valley Lodge reopened on June 15. While the lodge’s exterior remained the same, its insides were renovated, including updated guest rooms and bathrooms and improvements to public areas. Guests now check in at a new 20,000-square-foot building next to the lodge; that building also has spa and fitness facilities.