First Residential Development in a Decade Planned for Lake Tahoe

Developer Boulder Bay is building Lake Tahoe’s first residential project in more than a decade. Lake Tahoe has fixed development, limiting the number of projects that can come to market; however, under a new community plan, developers can increase the density of a project to create more open space. Granite Place at Boulder Bay, a community with 59 residences, a 275-room five-star hotel, 20,000 square-foot wellness spa, 20,000 square-feet of meeting space and retail space, will be the first project under the new community plan.

“This particular spot in Lake Tahoe was designated as a community plan area, and the concept is that while the amount of development is fixed—meaning that you can’t build additional space—if you consolidated it into a tighter area, it would result in more open space,” Roger Wittenberg of Boulder Bay tells GlobeSt.com. “So, we are allowed to build denser and taller, but you have to buy assets, tear them down, re-vegetate and rebuild. So, when we are done, we will have more property but also more open space.”

Because new development opportunities, the housing supply is limited. With local population growth, there has been pressure to bring new housing to the area. “There is a fixed number of houses, and Reno is growing like crazy,” says Wittenberg. “The city is one of the fastest growing counties in the United States. The amount of dwelling rights cannot be increased.”

In addition to providing more housing stock for the growing population, Granite at Boulder Bay will also solve other community issues, namely traffic and storm water management, by boosting density. “Traffic and management of storm water are two of the city’s top concerns. Right now, everything is spread out,” says Wittenberg. “This will begin to consolidate activity, and people will be more likely to walk and experience the community without getting into their car.” To address storm water loss, Boulder Bay is implementing water filtration systems. “We had 188% of normal moister this winter, but we had no water runoff the site,” adds Wittenberg. “It was capture in our water filtration systems.”

As expected, the first new development came with some hesitation from the community, but Wittenberg says that support has increased tremendously. “At first there was apprehension. As we get further into the project, the community support has increased rather than decreased. I have had no confrontational experiences for years now,” he says. “People want to see it get done.”

While people want the project, it could take some time to build. When asked about delivery, Wittenberg says, “The market is going to tell us more about that than anything. A project like this takes extraordinary patience. The fastest that I could get it done is five years.”