The annual meeting of the Telluride Mountain Village Owners Association (TMVOA) featured Merrimac Ventures President and CEO Dev Motwani as a guest speaker.
Merrimac Ventures is one of the two real estate investment and development firms partnering on the new Four Seasons Resort and Private Residences project expected to break ground this spring in Mountain Village. The other firm is Fort Partners led by Nadim Ashi.
Motwani spoke to more than 40 people attending the TMVOA meeting online on Jan. 30 about the firm’s prior developments and its visioning process for Four Seasons in Mountain Village.
“It’s such a special place that you have,” Motwani said.
He acknowledged Mountain Village is a challenging place to build and expressed passion for working on projects that create resort accommodations with world-class design that is warm and welcoming.
“There's certainly some great buildings and projects in Mountain Village, but nothing's been built in a long time, and so we really felt the opportunity to come in with something that was elevated, both from a design standpoint as well as service standpoint,” Motwani said.
The Daily Planet previously reported the billion-dollar hotel project at the base of the Mountain Village gondola station on Lot 161 will eventually build out on 4.5 acres to encompass 52 hotel rooms and 40 hotel residences with two separate buildings housing 28 high end private residences, all as part of a local 30-year vision for the town.
At the TMVOA meeting, TMVOA President and CEO Anton Benitez talked about the history of the vision and reviewed the investment made in 2015 when TMVOA acquired Lot 161.
“This really goes to Ron Allred's vision for having a world class hotel on this particular site, right in the center of Mountain Village, and this was reconfirmed in the comprehensive plan that outlines a 30-year roadmap for the future,” Benitez said.
Allred’s legacy for building and supporting skiing in Telluride and Mountain Village eventually landed him in the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame, at which time he told the Daily Planet in an interview in 2011, “When I first came here, no one in America had ever heard of Telluride.”
To assist in the development of Lot 161, TMVOA has decided on a list of investments to publicly benefit the community with as much as $4.1 million dedicated to public improvements, community facilities and the conveyance of some parcels of land to the town for workforce housing.
TMVOA board member Jim Royer said an estimated $1.1 million investment will be made on the plaza walking trail.
“We would invest in the walkway in between the new hotel building and the back of the buildings that face Heritage Plaza while they get dressed up coming from the pond lot in the convention center area to the gondola plaza, so that'll be a beautifully landscaped area with a walking trail and access up to the hotel,” Royer said.
Another investment on the list includes $500,000 to the Town of Mountain Village to improve the pond plaza.
Motwani said it was natural for Ashi to be a business partner on the project. Ashi has been skiing in the Telluride area for 30 years, Motwani said, and that he and his family “love the community.”
Together, Motwani and Ashi’s goals are to bring a special development to Mountain Village after having worked together on other projects in Florida.
The Four Seasons project is garnering national and international attention due to its special location. The hotel’s clientele is “the same buyers” as one of their other development projects, the Surf Club residences in Miami Beach, Ashi told The Wall Street Journal when it picked up the story on Dec. 25, and Ashi said he’s collaborating with European spas about making “Telluride a year-round destination for wellness cleansing.”
Visit https://tmvoa.org/ for more information about TMVOA. For more information on the Four Seasons hotel project, visit tellurideprivateresidences.com.
