Housing crunch hurts Vail

Affordability woes pinch businesses in skiing mecca

By Joyzelle Davis, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Originally published 12:05 a.m., January 29, 2008
Updated 09:43 a.m., January 29, 2008

Photo by Ed Kosmicki, Special to the Rocky

Ed Kosmicki, Special to the Rocky

Sweet Basil restaurant executive chef Paul Anders and his kitchen crew prepare dinner food Jan. 22, a day when no lunch was served because the staff was stretched so thin.

Ed Kosmicki / Special to the Rocky

Sweet Basil co-owner Matt Morgan stands at the restaurant entrance Jan. 22, where a sign turns away would-be diners. A staffing pinch led to Monday and Tuesday lunchtime closures.

The Vail Daily newspaper brims with seven full pages of help-wanted ads for pastry chefs, night hotel auditors, shuttle drivers and all the other jobs that keep the ski town humming.

But there's a scant five postings for available accommodations, including two houses with rents that start at $5,000 a month.

"We have some ratio issues," said Nina Timm, housing coordinator for the town of Vail.

Vail, like a lot of Rocky Mountain resort towns, has never been renowned as an affordable-housing mecca. But the problem has become especially acute this season as a slew of new restaurants and hotels have added hundreds of jobs.

Construction on new housing, meanwhile, is largely limited to plush second homes that are far beyond the reach of a two-person household making the median income of $89,600. The comparatively affordable neighboring towns of Avon and Edwards, which once supplied much of Vail's labor force, in recent years have developed full-fledged economies that provide plenty of well-paying, commute-free jobs of their own.

The labor crunch is starting to cut into some local icons. Downtown restaurant Sweet Basil earlier this month decided to close for lunch on Mondays and Tuesdays for the first time in its 30-year history. Sweet Basil's owners made the move after many of its kitchen staff worked six consecutive 14-hour days throughout the holidays as help-wanted ads in the newspaper lingered unanswered.

"It was purely a quality-driven decision. We were stretched so thin that we knew that if we continued at that pace we would burn them out," said Matt Morgan, co-owner of Sweet Basil.

The restaurant hasn't been able to attract employees in spite of raising wages for some positions nearly 40 percent over the past two years and offering perks such as free ski passes and health insurance. Morgan even bought a condo to provide housing, but that only provides four rooms. The restaurant employs nearly 70 at the height of ski season.

Sweet Basil so far is the only restaurant to cut meal service altogether, but other eateries are paring back by keeping tables empty even as the line of customers builds outside.

Jay McCarthy, who owns five restaurants in and around Vail, including the new Vail Chophouse and Blue Moose Pizza, installed software that calculates how many customers can be served each mealtime given his limited staff. That doesn't always sit well with customers who have to wait.

"As far as hiring goes, I'd have to say this is one of the toughest years I can remember," he said.

Vail Resorts, which runs Vail Mountain and is Vail's biggest employer, provides about 3,000 rooms at its lodges in Eagle and Summit counties. But for the first time, the company had to rent about a dozen rooms from a third party to house its work force, said spokeswoman Kelly Ladyga.

On top of the lack of housing, large employers have also been pinched by a shortage of seasonal workers from abroad. Congress last year didn't extend a provision that exempted returning employees from limits on the numbers of visas that U.S. immigration officials can issue to temporary foreign workers. For McCarthy, whose restaurants typically employ about 400 in the ski season, the visa change alone trimmed 10 percent of his work force.

The problem is likely to get worse before it gets better. Vail is in the middle of a so-called billion-dollar renewal, which will add 1,500 jobs. Another 2,115 jobs could be created by development awaiting approval by the town, while neighboring Avon and Edwards are expected to add some 7,400 jobs in the next 10 years.

Nearly two-thirds of residences in Vail are second homes, and the valley's narrow sliver of buildable land and historic aversion to density have made it difficult to add more homes.

The town of Vail, which has had its own troubles filling critical positions such as police officers and teaching posts in the past, has been working on ways to correct the imbalance. Last year, the town passed a law requiring developers to provide housing for 30 percent of the jobs that will be created by any new project. Earlier this month, the town approved a developer's plan to more than double the size of Timber Ridge, Vail's biggest affordable-housing complex at about 600 units.

Even so, Vail's Timm is pessimistic about the outlook for employers, predicting that only companies that can offer housing alongside an employment offer will survive in the years to come.

"We're not adding workers, so businesses are just stealing them from one another" by offering to pay more, she said. "Eventually, that breaks the economic model for a lot of businesses."

The higher wages come as soaring food and energy costs are already pinching the profits at a lot of restaurants, said Pete Meersman, Colorado Restaurant Association president. While Vail might be the land of the $49 steak, restaurants still have to be careful when raising prices.

"There are plenty of places outside of Colorado for people to take their ski vacations, and we have to be sensitive to that," he said.

davisj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2514

The heart of the labor matter

Several factors contribute to the strained work force at Vail businesses, including:

* Housing: Affordable housing is scant, with most of the new housing construction going toward expensive homes.

* Seasonal workers: Congress didn't extend a provision exempting returning employees from limits on the number of visas issued. That reduced the number of seasonal workers.

* Neighboring towns: Avon and Edwards once supplied much of Vail's labor. Recently these towns have developed economies attracting those who live there to work there.

Vail jobs postings

* Vail Resorts: jobsinparadise. com

* Vail Daily online job postings: jobs.vaildaily.com/home

* Hospitality jobs: hcareers.com

Housing resources

* Town of Vail: vailgov.com