Skip to content

Search the site

Head to the library from 4-5PM to make Light-Up Holiday Cards. Drop in and create a light-up LED holiday card and dazzle your friends and family with a fun, festive gift! All supplies provided. All ages welcome.

Tonight’s Live Music:
OLD CAPITOL GRILL & SMOKEHOUSE – Wintery Wednesdays Concert Series, 6-9PM
ROCK REST LODGE – Dave Frisk, 6PM


The Planning Commission meets at 6:30 this evening in City Council Chambers. They will hold a public hearing on a proposed redevelopment of the Briarwood Inn property at the west end of 8th Street. This project will be developed by the same company that built the 8th Street Apartments and is building the 5 story sophomore apartment building across from Safeway. They plan to demolish the one-story restaurant and replace it with two four-story buildings and one three-story building. They will contain 72 apartments and a 48-unit hotel.

Parking: they plan to provide one parking space for each one-bedroom apartment and each hotel room, 1.5 spaces for two-bedroom apartments, and 2 spaces for 3 and 4 bedroom apartments. They hotel will have up to two employees on site at a time, and one parking space will be provided for the two of them.

Trees: If I’m reading the landscaping plans correctly, they will remove about 75 trees and will plant 83 young trees (2.5″ diameter trunk).

Affordable Housing: GURA has been negotiating with the developer, hoping to persuade them to make 10 of the apartments “affordable” in exchange for a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) deal. This agreement would last until the GURA district sunsets in twenty years, after which the apartments would revert to market rate pricing.

As an alternative, GURA may use that funding to create permanent affordable housing in another GURA district. Since the Central District (near the high school) already has one housing project with another one planned, they are looking at the West Colfax Urban Development district.

Either the central district or the West Colfax district would add more low-income housing to the Shelton Elementary articulation area. Thusfar, none has been built in the Mitchell area.

The project is shown on GuidingGolden.com. Only one citizen comment has been added to date:

This would make 171 apartments plus a 48 unit hotel within a span of about 500 meters along 8th street that have been added in the past eight years. In 2010 there were approximtely 110 housing units along 8th Street between Washington and the Briarwood Inn. This addition, plus the 8th Street Apartments and new condos near Washington, would create almost triple that number. The bike path has also been eliminated and no bike lanes exist — which makes riding dangerous. While this added congestion may benefit developers, it is an affront to those of us living in the area. My question for the Planning Commission is: would you want this to happen in your neighborhood?

City Staff responded that the bike path will remain.

Learn more about this project by reviewing the meeting packet….

Highlights