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Durango Herald Online THE DURAI`GO gERALD ~- -~ - - ~- C/ 9 9Z oFfo Page 1 of 2 C e„~-r..P Co~ies`..~~.Ke. Ewing Mesa land goes for $40M Old development plan for area calls for as many as 3,000 homes April 6, 2006 By Dale Rodebaugh ~ Herald Staff Writer Oakridge Energy Inc., a Texas gas and oil development firm, announced this week that it has a buyer for 1,965 acres on Ewing Mesa southeast of downtown Durango. The price is $40 million. r /. i i r. ~~: .~ ~ ~~~ -~ Duengii I Mell I j Bodo N'a4Mart PaM L IffJiFi NEWIN aatl on this site" Three-quarters of the holdings - 1,495 acres -fall within the Ewing Mesa Area Plan approved by Durango officials in January 2004. The plan envisions amini-city with houses, parks, schools and commercial development on the mesa, above State Highway 3 and south of Horse Gulch. The announcement by Oakridge President Sandra Pautsky said Denali Partners LLC has deposited $2 million in order to begin a 60-day inspection. If at the end of 60 days the buyer decides to follow through with the purchase, an additional $2 million in earnest money would be required. In a telephone conversation from her office in Wichita Falls, Texas, Pautsky said her health and the magnitude of the Oakridge at Durango project were the reasons she put the land on the market. "It was a significant investment for our small company," Pautsky said. "It would be difficult for us to accomplish and would take a long time." A Web site for Minneapolis-based Denali Partners describes it as a private equity firm that provides strategic consulting and advisory services. No one from the firm was available Wednesday to confirm its role in the deal. Pautsky said the contract with Denali Partners "gives full value to Oakridge's prior investment and work Around 1990, the Pautsky family began planning Oakridge at Durango, a village of up to 3,000 homes, up to 2 million square feet of commercial space, schools, parks, churches, a golf course, a heliport and aerial tramways on the mesa 300 feet above Durango. Patriarch Noel Pautsky died in May 1998. In January 2004, city officials approved an area plan for Ewing Mesa that reflected some of what the Pautskys had in mind. Later the same year, Sandra Pautsky told The Herald that she had been diagnosed with life-threatening cancer and that plans for Ewing Mesa were on hold. Ewing Mesa, attractive for its flat terrain, almost undeveloped expanses and isolated but nearby location, has been coveted as the site of a golf course, and it was the other finalist when Mercy Medical Center decided to build its new facilityrn Grandview, a few miles to the east. Twelve acres of public trails donated by the Pautskys, three homes, an inactive coal mine and a couple of gravel pits are the extent of Ewing Mesa's current development. Vicki Vandegrift, the city of Durango's senior planner, said Wednesday that development on Ewing Mesa won't occur soon, even if a new owner intends to conform to the area plan. The land would have to be annexed, and the developer would have to go through the "conceptual process,"Vandegrift said. If new owners have other ideas, the area plan would have to be amended. "It will take a while," Vandegrift said. The sale !o Denali Partners is contingent on the approval of Oakridge stockholders. Sandra Pautsky, who owns or holds the right to vote 62 percent of the stock in the Wichita Falls, Texas, company, said she will vote for the sale. daler@ durangoherald. com http://durangoherald.com/asp-bin/printable_article~eneration.asp?article~ath=/news/06/news060406_3.htm 5/5/2006