JACKSON — That huge 360,000-square-foot hotel complex that Mogul Capital is proposing to build near downtown Jackson on North Cache Street has just landed in limbo.
The Jackson Town Council approved an emergency moratorium Monday night, putting a temporary hold on any new commercial projects greater than 35,000 square feet in Jackson’s downtown core or commercial zoning areas.
That gives the massive Mogul hotel proposal no way to move forward now, since the council already denied its request to vacate an alley. The company’s sketch plan, which was granted a one-time continuance to the council’s June 17 meeting, had assumed that vacating it would be approved.
“Their sketch plan will change so significantly without the alley vacation that it turns into a totally different application,” Councilwoman Jessica Sell Chambers told Cowboy State Daily. “Their sketch plan is no longer valid because it includes that assumption.”
In proposing the moratorium at the end of a lengthy council meeting that stretched past 11 p.m., Mayor Hailey Morton Levinson highlighted the recent public outcry against the project’s massive size. Critics had said having such a huge development at the gateway to Jackson would forever change the town’s character.
“(It’s) the public comment concerning applications, indicating the community’s general feeling that buildings in the town are getting too big,” she said. “And second, I want to recognize that I was on the council when, I think it was 2016, when we changed the (low-density residential regulations) to remove the maximum building size.
“And I think it’s taken until now to really see what that means. At the time, I certainly did not see the consequences of lot aggregation as we have seen with some of these applications.”
Mogul’s Mega Hotel Vision
Mogul’s 42-foot-tall, three-story hotel complex would have covered almost an entire city block — 11 lots that spanned 2.75 acres, bordered by North Cache and Perry streets.
On the drawing board, the development had 171 hotel rooms, as well as restaurants, retail stores, bars, a spa, fitness center, and rooftop deck, as well as hotel-related office and meeting space and 36 condos.
The plan was linked to both affordable and market housing, as well as deed-restricted housing. In fact, Jackson’s two-for-one housing bonus is how the project became so large.
Developers could get 2 square feet of market housing for every square foot of deed-restricted housing, which allowed Mogul to add 110,745 square feet to its existing entitlement.
Those credits came from Mogul’s South Park Loop project, which the town council has already approved, a 194-unit apartment complex that includes affordable housing.
Whether the moratorium will change the company’s plans with the South Park project is not known. Mogul Capital’s CEO Brad Wagstaff did not return Cowboy State Daily’s requests for comment.
Critics of the hotel project have questioned whether there was enough affordable housing with Mogul’s proposed South Park project to truly compensate for all the additional jobs the hotel would create.
There were also questions about the remediation of a benzene plume at the site, given that there is a near-to-surface aquifer.
Mogul’s plans had called for building an underground parking garage about 20 feet down, while the water table is just 2 to 8 feet down, according to Protect Our Water Jackson Hole Law and Policy Advisor Kevin Regan.
The lot where Mega Mogul proposed building a massive 360,000-square-foot hotel has landed in limbo after the Jackson Town Council approved a 120-day moratorium on large developments. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
The lot where Mega Mogul proposed building a massive 360,000-square-foot hotel has landed in limbo after the Jackson Town Council approved a 120-day moratorium on large developments. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
The lot where Mega Mogul proposed building a massive 360,000-square-foot hotel has landed in limbo after the Jackson Town Council approved a 120-day moratorium on large developments. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
The lot where Mega Mogul proposed building a massive 360,000-square-foot hotel has landed in limbo after the Jackson Town Council approved a 120-day moratorium on large developments. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
Residential Property Not Part Of Moratorium
The moratorium won’t cover residential property. Nor will it cover commercial projects that the council has already approved, or commercial projects that are less than 35,000 square feet.
That was a relief to some downtown property owners, who told Cowboy State Daily they were considering improvements for their properties.
Among these was Kudar Motel’s Michael Kudar. The historic property is located in downtown Jackson, just a block or so away from the Town Square.
The Kudars have been mulling improvements to their 96-year-old Jackson property, including the possibility of a boutique hotel in front, with affordable housing and its legacy, historic cabins toward the back.
Kudar said he will discuss the recent moratorium with his board, but expects it will probably focus on the residential portion of the improvements first.
“(The council) needs to focus on what the problem is, and the problem is the two-for-one bonus,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “It had good intentions eight years ago, but the council and the elected, they were thinking about how to incentivize developers to build housing. And they did, they got what they wanted. But it created something they weren’t anticipating.”
Whether the moratorium winds up being a good or bad thing remains to be seen, Kudar added.
“It’s Day One of the moratorium,” he said. “And I’m thinking I’m more concerned about how the council is going to address the two-for-one bonus.”
Kudar also said, however, that he’s not necessarily opposed to the proposed Mogul hotel either.
“Right now, he’s not entitled to move forward because of this moratorium,” Kudar said. “But he played within the rules. And it’s not that he was trying to get away with it or do something wrong. He went through the public process and now they’re probably, I don’t know, he’s going to have to reassess. Obviously, they’re not going to do anything now for 120 days.”
Keeping It Apolitical
Councilman John Schechter had advocated for a longer moratorium than 120 days, given the proximity to the upcoming November General Election.
“The chances of it getting politicized are pretty high,” he said. “I think we could preclude that right now by picking 180 days, six months, so that we can get past that and then we don’t have to worry about introducing that as a political issue.”
Councilman Jim Rooks agreed that it could become a political football, but he felt extending the moratorium might allow people to avoid taking a stand one way or the other.
“By having the deadline prior to the election, we’re kind of forcing all persons seeking office to answer hard questions about this,” he said. “Whereas if we wait until after the election, I think you could see people politically gaming it in that capacity. I personally want to know where people stand on this.”
Rooks also wanted the process to include under the moratorium’s rationale, some wording about the impact such projects have on infrastructure and traffic.
“That has been a very strong theme with the public comments,” he said. “And I think it’s a valid thing.”
Vice Mayor Arne Jorgensen, meanwhile, wasn’t comfortable with rolling the moratorium all the way back to 35,000 square feet.
“I’m not sure that number is the right number. Maybe it should be larger, if we’re really looking at aggregation,” he said, pointing out that the council had just approved a project at the last meeting that was 38,000 square feet on two lots.
Mayor Levinson said she’d chosen that number because that is what the figure was before the changes were made that led to the mega Mogul Hotel proposal.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
