Once complete, the first phase of development is expected to provide 216 rental units
A new development in Eagle is preparing to welcome its first residents in April.
Starting April 15, the first building with 36 rental apartments will be move-in ready at The Pike, an apartment complex formerly known as The Reserve at Hockett Gulch.
According to Rob Mackenzie, one of the owners/developers of The Pike, around 80% of the first units are already pre-leased. He expects that by April 15, all 36 apartments will be leased.
Mackenzie purchased the 30-acre property in 2020 alongside Epoch Residential, a Florida-based real estate developer, construction and management company, and Game Creek Holdings as the Epoch GCH Hockett Gulch Holdings, LLC. The site was purchased from Brue Baukol Capital Partners, which took the property through a lengthy and contested development process with the town of Eagle.
“When COVID hit, you could tell everyone from Denver wanted to move up here. It seemed like a good investment and time to build up here,” Mackenzie said.
In an email, the Epoch leadership team wrote that they “invested in The Pike because we saw the potential in the community and the project overall, as well as the need.”
“We created The Pike to provide a new housing option for the local employees within the town of Eagle. The project will add vibrancy to the town by growing its population in a compact design and in-fill location,” they added.
Of the need for housing, Mackenzie noted that “our numbers and research showed the whole valley is around 5,000 units short on housing — call it around 3,000 rental units (short).”
“The Vail Valley has been faced with a housing shortage and The Pike will help with the availability of attainable housing. The project serves as a new housing option for the local employees within the town of Eagle and we plan to learn from this project as we begin the process for our Phase 2, which will further ease the housing needs for Eagle,” wrote the Epoch leadership team.
The new owners began site work in September 2021 and broke ground in spring 2022.
Building up to 500 units
The development — which is located on Sylvan Lake Road across from the Eagle Urgent Care — is being constructed in multiple phases, with 36 units representing only a portion of the first phase.
Mission Rock Residential will serve as the property management group for the site. Mission Rock manages numerous properties in Colorado including 6 West in Edwards.
Once completed, the site will have a total of 500 rental units on site.
After its first building opens in April, “the remaining 180 units will open in stages over the next several months for a total of 216 rental units,” Mackenzie said.
The first phase will have 30 studio units, 78 one-bedrooms, 92 two-bedrooms and 16 three-bedrooms. Mackenzie said they expect to have the final four buildings in phase one complete by July and August.
Most of the apartment units will have balconies. All apartments come unfurnished with a washer-dryer in unit, air conditioning, and high-efficiency appliances. None of the buildings will have elevators with ADA-compliant units available on the first floor.
The property will include numerous amenities including a clubhouse (which will open by April 2) — complete with communal space, a dog park, an outdoor grill area with fire pits, a fitness studio, an 18-person hot hub and a pet spa. Additional amenities will eventually include a children’s playground, a ski and bike tuning room, electric vehicle charging stations and some park areas. The site will also be connected to the local paths and have a walking gravel path around the entire site, Mackenzie said.
The second phase will have 284 units, 28 of which will be townhomes, Mackenzie said. The townhomes will be four-bedroom, 3.5-bathroom units with either a one- or two-car garage. The owners and developers hope to break ground on this second phase later this year.
Bringing townhomes to the development was a way to do “something different and give people, and families, more options,” he added.
Per the development requirements, 45% of the available units will be deed-restricted, only to be leased to people who are employed or work within Eagle County for at least 30 hours a week. These deed restriction terms allow remote employees who live in Eagle County, but whose employer is based elsewhere, to qualify.
So far, Mackenzie said that 80% of the traffic and interest they’ve seen has been from people who work for Eagle County-based businesses.
While deed-restricted, there are no rent restrictions, and as such, all the units in the first phase will be offered at market rate. Currently, The Pike website has units listed for between $2,100 for a studio unit and $3,660 for a three-bed, two-bath unit.
“Rents have to be a certain level” to keep up with the high cost of building in Eagle County, Mackenzie said, adding that it is “30%, 40% more expensive to build up here than it is in Denver or other non-mountain communities.”
“If you make those affordable, which we would love to obviously, you need the government to jump in and help out. So I think on phase two, we’re going to work on it much more because we have a little more time,” Mackenzie said.
