Local development company uses recent economic downturn to grow

THE VAIL DAILY
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vaildaily.com
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Local development company uses
recent economic downturn to grow
Over the past two years,
Triumph Development
has turned into four
companies
By Scott N. Miller
SMILLER@VAILDAILY.COM
VAIL — Economic slumps are bad for
most of us, but some companies use
downturns to grow. Triumph Development is one of those companies.
The company’s most notable project to date is the Willows condominiums, near the Lodge at Vail. That project, started in 2005 and sold out two
weeks after the financial collapse of
2008, tore down and replaced the original building, built in 1971, with a
combination of part-owned and wholly owned condominiums.
The company was recently hired by
the town of Vail, Vail Valley Medical
Center, the Steadman Clinic and the
Steadman Philippon Research Institute
to do a feasibility study for redeveloping
the town’s municipal center. And it has
recently expanded its operations into
single-family homes, real estate sales
and property management, as well as
its core business of multifamily and
commercial development.
“We’ve had most of our success in
tough times,” company co-founder
Steve Virostek said.
Triumph is set to complete two sin-
CHRISTO
FROM PAGE A4
In crafting a memorandum of
agreement to allow the project, Colorado State Parks board member Jim
Pribyl said the state and the Over the
River Corp. hammered out a deal that
specifies how the state will receive a
$550,000 payment to offset environmental impacts and
administrative costs
associated with the
art project.
“There is a set payment of $550,000 that
will be made to Colorado State Parks if
the project goes forCHRISTO
ward, and that is an
absolute number. We
will get no more, we will get no less,”
Pribyl said.
Tim Monohan, board counsel from
the state attorney general’s office, said
there were three specific issues of concern for state parks related to the
Christo proposal — environmental
impacts, administrative costs and rea-
gle-family homes on Forest Road in Vail
that don’t have buyers yet, and the
company is building a home for a client
near McCoy.
Company
cofounder James Fangmeyer said he’s confident the Forest Road
homes will find buyers soon enough.
“A couple of properties have sold recently
for more than $2,000
JAMES
per square foot,” FangFANGMEYER meyer said. “We’re
excited about the
opportunity.”
Those homes will be listed through
Forbes Sotheby’s Real Estate in Vail,
which Triumph bought about 18
months ago. That company, Fangmeyer said, has sold about 40 percent of the
high-end property in Vail this year.
But how did Triumph end up in a
position to expand when a lot of development companies have foundered
over the past three years or so? The
short answer is that the company didn’t
take on too much debt during the real
estate bubble years.
Founded in Bethesda, Md., in 2002,
Virostek said the company saw property values rising too quickly in that area.
For example, Fangmeyer said, a vacant
lot near the company’s headquarters in
Bethesda was on the market in the
height of the boom.
“We had it valued at about $1.6 mil-
lion,” Fangmeyer said. The parcel eventually sold for $2.3 million and is still
undeveloped today.
“We found ways to
structure deals, so the
downturn didn’t hit
us as hard.”
“We didn’t do the
crazy deals,” Virostek
said. “When the market was so hot in D.C.,
we went looking for STEVE
other opportunities.” VIROSTEK
The opportunities
the company saw were in mountain
resorts. Triumph scouted Telluride,
Steamboat Springs and Vail. The partners chose Vail, and Virostek moved to
the valley soon after. He and his family
now own one of the units in the Willows. The company also started a program of sponsorship of local events
through its participation in the Vail Valley Foundation and, on its own, the Triumph Winterfest.
Now, six years after starting the Willows, Triumph has more employees
working in Vail than in Bethesda. Fangmeyer still lives back east, but the company recently brought chief operating
officer Michael O’Connor to Vail to help
run the operation.
sonable fees. He said the memorandum addressed each of these issues
and clearly outlines that the state’s
approval is contingent on the BLM’s
final determination.
Several opponents of the “Over the
River” project traveled from the Salida
area to urge the state parks board to
reject the art project. Ellen Bouder, representing an environmental coalition
opposed to the project, argued that
approving “Over the River” would
undermine the overall mission of Colorado State Parks and result in serious
impacts to both wildlife and the natural
environment.
Greg Felt, a fly-fishing outfitter from
Salida, said the project would have a
devastating effect on anglers and could
result in long-term damage to valuable
fisheries.
“The anglers and all Colorado citizens expect you to look after the natural
environment,” Felt said. “There is simply too much at stake to consider such a
gamble. ... It’s a sell out, a grab for money from Colorado State Parks.”
“My personal feeling is this project
affects my livelihood,” said another Sal-
ida-based angler, Rod Patch. “If you
vote to allow the ‘Over the River’ project
before you, you are selling out the fishing industry.”
But members of the parks board
responded that the project proposal has
been extensively vetted during an
approval process that dates back to
2008. They argued that while there will
be short-term negative impacts associated with the exhibit, the exposure for
the state and long-term potential benefits outweigh them.
“The greatest threat to preservation
of our natural resources is education,”
board member Bill Kane said.
He argued the Christo exhibit will
provide massive publicity for Colorado
and educate many people about the
state’s natural wonders.
“These things always come down to
balance,” said Mike King, executive
director of the Colorado Department of
Natural Resources. ”The benefits so far
outweigh the impacts that this is the
right thing to do for Colorado right
now.”
The board unanimously approved
the memorandum of agreement.
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