It was touch and go for Maria Vargas the first year she took over the Jackson salon where she had worked as a stylist for years.
“Sometimes I would finish working and I’d sit down by myself, and I was just exhausted and I would just cry,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “I was like, ‘What was I thinking? Why did I do this?’”
Eventually, she found other stylists to join her operation and rent affordable space from her. That helped her cover the monthly rent, and things began to get a little easier.
A couple years later, in 2018, she was able to move into a slightly bigger space on North Cache, a place that could comfortably fit six salon stations.
“We fixed the floor really nice,” Vargas said. “We put some nice tile in there. Put in six stations. It was just beautiful. Really nice.”
But on Monday, Vargas was alone once again, exhausted and crying at the end of a long day as she dismantled all of her business’ salon stations.
She is among a handful of remaining business owners who had a deadline to move out of their spaces by Monday, as their new landlord, Mogul Capital, makes way for a proposed hotel complex at the town’s north entrance that will include residences and other amenities such as a restaurant and bar.
So far, Vargas hasn’t been able to find another small retail space she can afford to start a new salon. Most are more than double, and some are almost quadruple what she had been paying.
“I’m trying to smile through everything and not be angry about it, not be hateful,” she said. “I know change is inevitable … but I was very upset, because it’s like these people who don’t even live here are coming in, buying all of this property after COVID, and they’re just building everywhere — new buildings — and Jackson is already ripping at the seams.”
Small Retail Spaces Short
The need for more small, affordable commercial spaces in Jackson is real, Mayor Arne Jorgensen told Cowboy State Daily.
That’s one reason he told the company last year, when the Town Council approved Mogul’s sketch plan for a 244,000 square-foot hotel and residential complex, that he wanted to see “greater activation” of the ground floor.
Jorgensen expressed that sentiment to Mogul Capital founder Brad Wagstaff.
“Mr. Wagstaff at that time said he understood that, saw that, and said, ‘Well maybe we can address that by bringing the restaurant and bar down to street level,’” Jorgensen said.
“And I was very clear and I said, ‘I don’t think that’s going to be adequate in terms of addressing the questions that I have. So I don’t know how the new proposal does or doesn’t address that. But we have a real need in our community for smaller, more affordable commercial spaces. If you’re developing nearly a full block in northern Jackson, I’d expect, too, some of those kind of spaces, and I don’t know whether we’re seeing that on this project.”
Jorgensen added that he’s not yet looked at the new plans, which were submitted by Mogul Capital last week, for a 309,000-square-foot development.
Although the plan now calls for five smaller buildings instead of one mega structure, the overall complex will still be the largest single development in Jackson’s history.
Jorgensen praised several aspects of the plan. The additional housing is welcome, he said, as is the cleanup effort for a benzene plume from a previous gas station that still remains underground.
That doesn’t mean Jorgensen won’t have questions, though.
“It’s important for me to let this process play out,” he said. “This is a project we have approved at a conceptual level and a sketch plan. They are now, as they have a right to do, taking it to the next level.”
That means reviews by Jackson’s Planning Commission, the Design Review Committee, and staff, Jorgensen said. The first of those meetings is set for Sept. 9.
“I think it’s really important that we don’t predetermine what (their recommendations) are going to be,” Jorgensen said. “This is a significant project in Jackson. I’m looking forward to reviewing it, but I’ve not spent a lot of time looking at what is going to be in front of us. I just think the process needs to play out.”
Not A Megahotel
Wagstaff, who grew up coming to Jackson with his family as a child and has spent the last 40-plus years there, pushes back against the idea that his project is a “mega” hotel, saying that’s just a description news media have used to “get clicks” but isn’t a fair characterization of his project at all.
“I think we’re at 84 hotel rooms,” he said. “I don’t think we’re even in the top 10 of the number of hotel rooms in the town of Jackson. That’s been very misconstrued in the paper.”
The new plan Mogul Capital submitted for review last week is a little larger than the previous sketch plan, but has fewer hotel rooms at 82, according to documents submitted to Jackson’s Planning Department by Mogul Capital. The previous plan had 109. That, too, was a reduction from an earlier 171 hotel rooms.
The plan also proposes a $10 million remediation for the benzene plume, which Wagstaff said responds to requests from the Town Council.
“We’ve been very intentional to listen to the town and what they’re asking for,” he said. “And the changes that have been resubmitted in the development plan are 100% requests by the town of Jackson.”
Wagstaff said his original impulse was to remediate the plume, but DEQ recommended they just build over the top and cap it off.
“The town requested that we remove it,” Wagstaff said. “So, we’re building a very, very expensive basement to mitigate that. That is where the expanded square footage comes from. And then the request for additional commercial activation has increased some of our parking needs, so we added additional parking.”
Most of the parking is underground, Wagstaff added.
“The above grade looks identical to what was approved in our sketch plan,” he said. “And the additional square footage is all basement and parking area — as requested by the town.”
More Residential Space Than Lodging
The complex doesn’t just come with a hotel, Wagstaff said, and has since been broken up from one large building into five smaller ones.
One of those, at more than 75,000 square feet of habitable space, exceeds the new, 40,000- to 50,000-square-foot cap on building sizes the Town Council approved in 2024. The others are 35,000 square feet, not including their basements.
The 75,000-square-foot building is allowed because Mogul submitted its plans before Jackson finalized its new caps under interim rules.
The site will offer a restaurant and bar, which has moved from upper levels to the ground floor. That is an attempt to “activate” the ground-level space as the Town Council and Jorgensen have requested, Wagstaff said.
There’s also a spa and fitness space in the development, as well as about 100,000 square feet of residential space, Wagstaff said.
“The vast majority, 65% of the square footage that you’re calling a mega hotel, has nothing to do with the hotel at all,” he said. “I’m very adamant that you need to go and report on the accurate data, which is the square footage of the hotel and the number of keys in the hotel and not convolute it with the residential portion of the project, because that is not a hotel. They’re not allowed to be rented nightly. They’re deed-restricted, so no nightly rental, no Airbnb, nothing. They are in no way, shape, or form part of the hotel.”
Hotel Is Three Stories
Planning documents filed with Jackson suggest the total lodging for the hotel is roughly 85,000 square feet. The plan shows a three-story structure, not including the basement parking garage and the rooftop hot tubs and pool.
Wagstaff said the overall development includes about 70,000 square feet of subterranean parking. There is some parking above ground as well, creating 199 parking spots in all, according to the site plan diagrams.
“We’re trying to be good partners with the town,” Wagstaff said. “We’ve built almost 200 housing units that we brought into the town of Jackson, and with this project we’re going to be deed restricting 76 additional units that are both workforce and affordable deed-restricted.”
That’s additional housing that Jackson needs at no cost to the town, Wagstaff said.
“We’ve continued to work hard to be a good partner with the town,” he said. “We hope people will recognize that we’re doing that.”
Thinking Of Moving
Jackson does need more housing, Vargas said.
“There’s people living in the living room of someone’s apartment or house, and they make it private by putting curtains around it,” she said. “They don’t even have a door and it costs them $1,200.”
But she questions whether Mogul and other new projects getting built in Jackson are bringing enough employee housing for their new projects.
“What about the people who already live here, who already have a job in the hotels and restaurants?” she asked, adding, “Many of them have to have two or three jobs to live here.”
Vargas said she’s started a business administration course to explore a new career avenue, but added that she’s also thinking about leaving the area once the course is completed.
“Maybe in a year or two, I move from here, take my stations and chairs to set up a salon somewhere else where rent is not outrageous,” she said. “I’ve been praying about it … I know that if one door shuts, another one opens. There are new possibilities. So I need to stay positive.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
