fred couzens/viewAfter spending $329,000 on a quarter-acre vacant lot on the corner of Yucca Street and Nevada Highway, All Mountain Cyclery owner Jeff Frampton is making plans to relocate his business to a yet-to-be-built, 3,200-square-foot, energy-efficient building. He conditionally received $24,750 in Redevelopment Agency funds July 8 for the project.
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With $24,750 worth of help from the city's Redevelopment Agency granted July 8, All Mountain Cyclery owner Jeff Frampton is ready to embark on a $779,000 expansion project that will allow him to escape the cramped shop he's in now and move into a new, more spacious building to be built about a block away.
Frampton underwent some intensive questioning at the RDA meeting because his application wasn't 100 percent complete, but agency members unanimously approved the request based on a condition that if he didn't complete his paperwork satisfactorily, he would forfeit the award.
When quizzed about whether he really needed the money for the construction of a new stand-alone 3,200-square-foot building on a .26-acre parcel at the southwest corner of Yucca Street and U.S. Highway 93, Frampton said, "(Without it,) I wouldn't go forward with this project the way the economy is."
Frampton's business started out nearly five years ago in a strip shopping center at 1404 Nevada Highway and has grown ever since.
"When we started out, people told us not to go there because it was in a 'dead hole' of the center," he said. "But it's not that way any more."
The growth Frampton's business has experienced is due, in large part, to the increasing popularity of Bootleg Canyon for its mountain biking trails that have been featured nationally and internationally in biking magazines.
"Yeah, Bootleg Canyon helps, and our store fit a niche that wasn't being filled," he told the RDA members. "Bootleg Canyon is a huge draw. There's about an average of a couple of Canadians a week up there, and that's a lot. There's tons of riding going on up there. People come from all over because it's become a destination for bicycling."
He believes the new location next to Alpaca Pete's International Trading Store, where tourists frequently stop for visitor information, will be a big plus for him, as well.
"We'll have a visible stand-alone building on the right-hand side of the highway that will provide easier access for people coming into Boulder City," Frampton said. "Hopefully, they'll put a traffic light in at Yucca that will make people have to stop in front of the store. While they're waiting there, they'll look around, and if they see us, maybe they'll come in."
The new building will be about 3,200 square feet, compared to the 2,300-square-foot shop All Mountain Cyclery now occupies. The current facility has low ceilings and is jam-packed with bicycles, clothing, helmets, accessories and a repair shop.
"The new building will have 16-foot ceilings, an office area upstairs and a larger repair shop area with its own service entrance," Frampton said. "It will also be energy-efficient."
Frampton's building will be L.E.E.D. (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, meaning it will use the most up-to-date, energy-efficient features -- a "green building" -- to reduce costs and power demand.
"This will be the first L.E.E.D. commercial building in Boulder City," city building official Ron Nybo said. "We have a couple of residential applications of this, one on an addition and another on a house under construction. This is something we're familiar with, but have yet to see it done on a commercial building here."
The cost of the $779,000 project breaks down to $329,000 for the land and $450,000 for the building, improvements, landscaping and parking lot upgrade.
Of the $450,000, only $82,500 worth of improvements qualify for funding under the RDA guidelines, with only 30 percent of that figure -- $24,750 -- eligible to be paid to the applicant.
According to calculations on how much of a property tax increase the RDA's area will see, All Mountain Cyclery will pay more than $6,400 in property taxes for the land and improvements, which is $3,900 more than the business is now paying.
Frampton is using Asset Building Group of Las Vegas as his general contractor on the project.
"We're excited about moving forward with this endeavor," he said. "It's going to be a good thing."
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