Stefan de Vogel / Special to the Summit Daily
Editor’s note: Stories in this list received the most page views on SummitDaily.com for the past week.
1. Summit County residents are dealing with event fatigue, and their local governments are listening
Events are a fun way to bring together a community, but in towns where the local economy revolves around tourism, residents can become fatigued by the constant barrage of marketing, activities and crowds.
This is an especially fine line in Summit County, which attracts visitors from across the world as well as the nearby Front Range. In addition to spending money at the events, visitors also support other local businesses such as restaurants, breweries and lodging establishments.
Successful events equal an increasingly successful local economy, but when too many events overwhelm Summit County, residents become disgruntled by road closures, overcrowding, traffic, noise and an overall disturbance of the mountain lifestyle. Breckenridge has had to say “no” to events that didn’t serve the community or would overwhelm the town. The town of Frisco also is working through solutions to address event fatigue.
2. Opinion | Morgan Liddick: The truth about assault weapons bans
Columnist Morgan Liddick writes about his opinion on a proposed amendment to the state constitution banning “military style assault weapons” and other semi-automatic rifles.
“Florida’s Attorney General Ashley Moody immediately noted that, as written, the draft would ban most firearms sold and in use in the state. She was immediately attacked as a scaremonger and worse by the coterie of people dedicated to the proposition that firearms are bad and only the state should possess them,” he writes.
“What happened in Florida is illuminating, not just because it reveals the all-too-familiar animus on the left toward inanimate objects that, if used with malice, will slay. It is illuminating because it shows those wishing to take firearms from public hands will allow nothing to dissuade them.”
— Morgan Liddick, columnist
3. Breckenridge named 3rd most expensive town in America
Breckenridge was named the third most expensive town in America in rankings released Aug. 15 by LendingTree.
To rank the 50 most expensive towns, the study looked at median home values and median income “to determine how attainable homeownership is for the average person living there.”
The survey found that renting or owning a home was out of reach for median income earners in 42 of the 50 towns in the study, including Breckenridge.
— Summit Daily staff report
4. Breckenridge Ski Resort transforms Peak 8 base area
Breckenridge Ski Resort’s Peak 8 base area is getting a makeover. The area will be getting escalators between the street and plaza levels for guests who prefer not to walk up stairs in their ski boots. The skier services headquarters also is being redone, and new locations will be added for ticket and season pass sales, the Breckenridge Ski & Snowboard School, and retail and rental stores.
New amenities including an outdoor ice skating rink, coffee shop and additional restrooms are being added along with a transit stop.
5. Summit County real estate market cools off as fear of recession grows nationally
Summer and early fall are often the busiest times for real estate in Summit County, with the months of June through October historically carrying the highest volume of sales. But with national news predicting an economic recession paired with a downturn in Denver’s real estate market, Summit County buyers seem to have backed off.
July’s number of home sales, total sales volume and luxury home sales were all lower than July 2018, with decreases ranging from 10% to 18%.
In Denver, residential housing sales went down by 2.5% for the month of July compared with July 2018. While the slowdown is smaller than here in Summit, it’s a definite shift for a market that had been booming.
Despite growing fears nationally, Coolidge was optimistic that Colorado and Summit County won’t be as affected as the rest of the country, citing evidence that Colorado has a diversified economy.