Benny Moo

The best listing in my neighborhood: 4990 E Cliff Point

4990 E Cliff Point Circle has returned to market. This show-stopping home has been COMPLETELY Remodeled and sits on a choice lot in the Pinecliff Community.

While neighborhoods like Pine Creek and Peregrine often get the attention of buyers looking for D20 custom homes, this house offers a superior product at a better price in a neighborhood arguably more stable in value and convenient in location that either Pine Creek or Peregrine.

Pinecliff is the most southerly neighborhood in Academy District 20. That means it is the closest to downtown Colorado Springs and yet has the award-winning schools known throughout the region (and by officers in the United States Air Force around the world it seems!) like Rockrimmon Elementary, Eagleview Middle School and Air Academy High School.

Pinecliff also has a wide variety of prices. There are condos and townhomes on the south rim that are in the $150,000's, there are single family listings in the $300,000's and $400,000's, and there are high-end listings right up against Ute Valley Park in the $600,000's, with newer, one-of-a-kind homes on Cordillera that have never seen the market worth significantly more than that. And all of this is 11 minutes from downtown.

A short walk from the home is Ute Valley Park, one of the jewels in the crown of Colorado Springs Park System. The almost 8 miles of hiking and mountain biking trails offer wilderness-like experiences with a suburban access. Just to the south and west is world-famous Garden of the Gods. More trails, more hiking, more biking, an outstanding road bike circuit, horseback riding, and of course, beginner to technical rock-climbing. Only fifteen minutes away is Blodgett Peak Open Space, 167 acres ringed by Pike National Forest and the United States Air Force Academy. And on the east side of the neighborhood is the Pikes Peak Greenway Trail which connects downtown with Palmer Lake. Connecting to the trail is safe from the home, even if you're towing a bike trailer. This is why the west-side is such a magnet for recreation buffs who live, work and play in Colorado Springs (Outside Magazine's Number One City to Live in 2009).

Nearby is the up and coming dining corridor of Garden of the Gods. Less than one mile away is Marigolds, Ai Sushi, Great Harvest Bread Company and Trinity Brewing. Jun's Sushi Bar is less than five minutes south. Three grocery stores are less than a five minute drive and downtown is exactly 12 minutes away (Bijou Exit 141 off of I-25).

Pinecliff is truly one of the finest communities in Colorado Springs. And ownership of a 5400 square foot home with:

• Home Theatre by Connected Technologies
• Dacor, Hickory and Granite Slab Kitchen
• Dining Room for 10
• Remodeled Master Bedroom with Glass-Bowl sinks, Shower for two, soaking tub and heated tile flooring
• Smart House Wiring
• Main Level Guest Suite with Custom 3/4 attached bath
• Dining Room for 10
• Great Room Living Room
• Stucco Exterior, Tile Roof

For a price under $500,000... it's hard enough to find a house this loaded on a lot in Falcon for this price, but with this location, it is truly a one-of-a-kind opportunity, the best Pinecliff has to offer.

Marketing is Built Right in: Why An Ampitheatre and Trader Joe's could make Gold Hill Mesa Sing...

I subscribe to the theory that you can't gimmick something to success.

Another theory: advertising does not work.

A third: marketing is value built right in. As a user or consumer, you see it: you want it.

I think Gold Hill Mesa is presently an overpriced neighborhood. The reason is that they have a hard sell and I am forced to think about them in conventional real estate terms... No D12 or D20, but D11, soils that freak out REALTORS probably effects future resale values, one of the major backers of the area went Chapter 11 in 2008. I can prattle on with bigger deficiencies in Wolf Ranch, Flying Horse and even to a degree Cordera, but my point is this: in it's present state of development, I am forced to think of it in conventional real estate terms. Conventional real estate thinking is usually fear-based thinking, the kind of thinking that discourages action rather than encourages action. Conventional real estate thinking removes objections to present the most unobjectionable product possible.

As a consumer, I ask: what was the last product you bought because it was so unobjectionable? Life insurance?

As a marketer, I know you are "selling" in the contemporary sense of the word when the consumer takes voluntary actions towards the product. When the consumer makes a conscious, proactive decision FOR the product... something is about to happen that is big.

I would want to buy in Gold Hill Mesa (in present market dollars) if they accepted my proposal I just sent off to them.

In fact, I bet real estate values would double in three years in a FLAT MARKET in the 1 mile radius of Gold Camp Road and 21st if this project took off. If you are a believer that Walkscore is flipping brilliant (I said flipping, so yes, I think it is brilliant), imagine the walk score for a neighborhood:

• 1 mile from downtown
• newly constructed with parks and open space inside it
• walkable to a grocery and pharmacy. Now make that grocery store Trader Joe's
• walkable to an outdoor performing arts venue
• a bike ride to clean-flowing water with catchable trout
• and across the street from the mother-of-all El Paso County open space parks, Bear Creek Park

Seth Godin said six years ago, and I'm paraphrasing Purple Cow here, but we have so little time and so much competing for our attention... we simply want something that works and fits the bill, perfectly. That is what will the consumer will buy.

Residential development often avoids this thinking, and instead dumps a set of market-tested mixed stew into a product and then hopes to find a price point that lures activity. I'm exagerrating for dramatic effect of course. But I don't think the reality is too far removed from the hyperbole.

Gold Hill Mesa has struggled like all local residential developments. But I think their geographic location is positively magic. They have a hurdle to overcome which is the mine tailings processed on that site 100 years ago. Interestingly, the only transaction I have sold in there was purchased by a Chemical Engineer and Chemical Weapons specialist with extensive geologic training from the US Army. In other words, I'm exposed as the liberal arts doofus I really am when I'm around this client. If anyone should apply conventional real estate thinking to their decision, it is this client. He moved towards the product. He checked it out and thought the soils on the mesa was the most comprehensively analyzed and action-assessed dirt in El Paso County. He bought there without hesitation.

Imagine if instead of being perceived as a deficiency to the area... that same dirt was seen as a value built right in.

Here is my letter sent to Gold Hill Mesa today.

There is this big swath of land owned by a developer called Gold Hill Mesa that runs north from Gold Camp Road along the east side of 21^st to Highway 24… largely undeveloped. Disturbing that soil will have negative implications for Fountain Creek.

 

But what if…

 

A 1500 to 2500 seat performing arts venue was a part of that?

 

What if…

 

Part of the soils work was sponsored and organized by Trout Unlimited and Dave Leinweber with Angler’s Covey?

 

What if…

 

The retail anchor was Trader Joe’s?

 

What if…

 

The developer's political connections convinced local legislators to meet with their friends in the State Congress to repeal Colorado Blue Laws making Denver an attractive warehousing operation for Trader Joe’s and helping facilitate the expansion of the franchise throuhgout the state?

 

What if…

 

People of all political persuasions, arts focus, development focus, recreational focus, etc. created a world-class development that was not just housing, but immediate recreation, instant access to arts, anchored by a national franchise brand that is the “un-franchise” of franchises?

 

What if that was in Colorado Springs?

 

Could a developer and residential development actually create a landscape where Colorado Springs moves from a position of second city, to unique innovator in the economic growth and expansion of the State of Colorado?

 

Just because they built a high-quality performing arts venue, allowed the trout nuts to help with the dirt work, and brought a high-value brand grocery store to Colorado?

 

The World Arena cost $48 million 11 years ago. It was 100% privately financed.

 

What do you think the value of Gold Hill Mesa would be relative to an infill in Lakewood like Belmar? I think I would much rather live in Gold Hill Mesa than Bel Mar. Or Stapleton.

 

Imagine taking in a summer evening concert with a national recording act, looking north at Garden of the Gods and Northeast to the city lights. Beyond that, thunderstorms light the sky over Black Forest.

 

Hmmm….

This Weekend: Frijole & Chile Festival!

Local agriculture is hard at 6500 feet. Most of El Paso County is well over a mile high in elevation, and with a 90 day growing season, few cities in North America are this size with a growing season this short. Home grown produce is more novelty than reality for most individuals.

Go downhill a good 1700 feet, have access to Arkansas River irrigation and "enjoy" a couple dozen summer afternoons with temperatures well over 100 degrees and you get a totally different climate. Pueblo, CO is the ideal environment for high quality chile, and while I will always tip the hat to our neighbors in New Mexico and the quality of their Hatch and Chimayo... my heart is loyal to the local Mira Sol.

This weekend is the 15th Annual Loaf and Jug Chile and Frijole Festival. I mean, how can you not attend with a name like that? It is your opportunity to head south for a little local culture that has been native to the Front Range for centuries... yes, chile cultivation predates by centuries the more commonly celebrated "western heritage" of events like the Pikes Peak or Bust Rodeo. And let's face it... burgers, dogs and funnel cake ain't got nothing on hoppin' mean green made with the local Mira Sol. And if you need burgers, dogs and funnel cake you can find it at the 15th Annual Loaf and Jug Chile and Frijole Festival  ...slathered in chile of course.

If you're a first timer to local chile, keep in mind that the hotter the summer, generally the more pungent the heat. This was not a toasty summer so it probably won't be so hot. If you're making chile and have a low Scoville tolerance, stick with the Anaheims. This SoCal import is conisderably milder and still rich in flavor. If you like mellow nutiness, get the extra-vine-ripened red chiles for a different, more complex flavor.

But if you really want the full-on, local experience... this is the weekend to head to Pueblo, buy a bushel of flame-kissed peppers

(does the culinary world know anything better than a rotating steel cage and a blowtorch?), stink up your car so it smells like reefer madness on the way home, and peel and bag the babies in your kitchen sink. Your freezer is blessed with Colorado's finest local vegetable.

Free Friday: Grilled Pineapple Salsa

Kevin Day really gets credit for this, because he's the source file. But as he well knows, there is a very difficult ability to enforce intellectual property on recipes.

I'm fishing tomorrow and Rocky Mountain National Park prefers all anglers harvest Brook Trout, an invasive species on the territory of the gorgeous, wild, native Greenback Cutthroat.�

If Andrew and I get any brookies for the creel (I'm using my Cedar Heights Man Purse from the Nichols & Comito Home as a creel... maybe that entertains only me!), this is slathered all over them after they come off the grill.

1 Pineapple, skinned, cored and cut into four large pieces
1 red onion, cut horizontally into about five sets of rings
1 red bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
8 sprigs mint
3 T Lime juice
2 T New Mexico Chipotle Powder
Optional: 1 Jalapeno (grill whole)
Optional: 1 Chipotle in Adobo

Warm your grill to hot (1 second hand test four inches above grill)
Scatter all the fresh fruit and veggies across the grill until charred
When cooked, remove and dice and place in a bowl
Toss with Lime Juice and Heat of Choice
Add a turn or two of feshly ground Kosher Salt or Sea Salt