Moab Area Real Estate Magazine January-February 2017
As he retires from real estate, Joe Kingsley talks business, nuclear physics, scenic garbage dumps — and his passion for community
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USU-Moab Comes of Age
ONCE A PIPEDREAM, THE FUTURE IS COMING INTO FOCUS FOR A FULL-SCALE CAMPUS
Written by Lara Gale
Approaching Moab from the south on U.S. Highway 191 can feel a little like leaving civilization behind: You enter a region of sandstone spires and yawning canyons that almost defies the imagination, a landscape millions of years in the making.
The geography can feel a little overwhelming, and, by contrast, humans can seem almost insignificant. But in fact, there is also a city here, with a population of about 5,000 permanent residents.
And the city is growing fast. The number of visitors to Moab is rising annually, as people around the world learn about the incredible diversity of outdoor recreational opportunities and the sheer beauty of Utah’s canyon country. Arches National Park, for instance, has experienced double-digit percentage increases in visitor numbers each of the past several years.
Along with the surge in popularity have come challenges, and Moab’s business, government and community leaders have embraced issues of growth with characteristic creativity and flair. You’ll find examples of local innovation everywhere, from the multitude of independently owned businesses on Main Street, to top-notch medical facilities (including a free clinic), to a panoply of respected nonprofit organizations, to an ever-evolving network of hiking and biking trails.
By fall 2020, Moab will be more than a gateway to world-famous geology and world-class recreation. It will also be a leading center for education, innovation and entrepreneurial opportunities, when a new, state-of-the-art campus for Utah State Univer-
sity-Moab begins enrolling students. The campus will be located at the city’s southern entrance.
The university has actually had a presence here for more than 50 years. Like other land-grant university extension campuses, the one in Moab serves as an adjunct of its main campus located in Logan, near the Idaho border.
By the early 2000s, the Moab campus was at risk of closure as enrollment numbers dropped, despite efforts to expand the curriculum in partnership with College of Eastern Utah. A fresh effort to encourage local, non-traditional enrollment, led by Academic Advisor Sam Sturman, helped the campus generate community support that was critical to its survival.
“To my mind, anything that makes it easier for kids to get a good education and start a career is really a great investment,” Sturman says.
With Sturman’s assistance, enrollment grew, and the university extension moved to a more centrally located spot, in downtown Moab. Today, an average of 130 students are enrolled at USU-Moab at a given time. The campus’s new main building, to be built in 2019, will be more spacious still: the new incarnation of USU is expected, at least initially, to accommodate 300 students, and expand to potentially 500 to 700 students as demand and housing allows.
An artist’s rendering of the view toward the La Sal Mountains from the future USU-Moab campus. (Image courtesy of EDA Architects Inc.)
Ray C. And Ruth Holyoak donated the initial 20 acres of land for the campus as part of a gift facilitated by their daughter Katherine Holyoak. (Photo courtesy of Holyoak family)
A gift that will give back in perpetuity
And, just as local residents have offered time and energy to the City of Moab and made it an exemplar of local innovation, the story of the new campus begins with a gift. In this case, it was a tract of ranchland –– 20 acres’ worth ––given by Ray C. and Ruth Holyoak to Utah State University in the 1990s. The land will be used for a new campus across from the southernmost end of Mill Creek Drive, the old highway into town.
The gift was a way to give back to an institution that has been a great benefit to their family, said daughter Katherine Holyoak, who along with her husband, and the rest of her family, facilitated the estate gift.
The skills and credits he obtained through USUMoab while he was still in high school, for example, enabled Katherine’s son, Brendan, to became a fully licensed electrician by age 20. He still works for the family business, Moab-based A&E Electric, today.
“My kids, all seven of them, took concurrent enrollment in high school through USU,” Holyoak said. “We all just decided this (gift) was the best way to share the family’s legacy.”
By the fall of 2014 –– nearly two decades after the Holyoak family’s initial gift –– the Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration (SITLA) approved a land swap granting the university an additional 20 acres for the campus (the plan is to utilize adjacent parcels of SITLA land for student and community housing).
University staff immediately began applying to state and federal agencies for grants. The university itself fully funded the design process, which was completed in 2015; Community Impact Board funds and a U.S. Highways improvement grant were secured for infrastructure projects (such as re-working the highway intersection at Mill Creek Drive to allow for the college driveway). The remainder of the funds will be secured over the next two years and will include contributions from the State of Utah, USU, the City of Moab and Grand County.
Three years on, the first wave of infrastructure improvements is underway. As soon as the ground thaws in 2018, construction will begin.
USU-Moab Dean Steve Hawks stands on the site of the future campus. The Moab Rim rises in the background. (Photo by Rudy Herndon)
USU-Moab Academic Advisor Sam Sturman was instrumental in generating community support for a local campus. (Photo courtesy of Moab Sun News)
Ray C. Holyoak, in the 1940s, on the ranch land that he worked with his father and brothers. (Photo courtesy of Holyoak family)
Planners, designers, stakeholders and the community have been working to fine-tune a blueprint for the campus that incorporates state and federal high-efficiency building standards, internationally recognized LEED certification requirements, and permaculture design principles.
The final plan for the first phase of construction is a synthesis of modern construction technology and science.
“The campus will serve as a living textbook on designing for a fragile ecosystem,” said Steve Hawks, dean and executive director at USU-Moab.
EDA Architects of Salt Lake City, specialists in environmentally responsive design, are lead architects on the project. The firm has taken on the challenge of envisioning, and engineering, a building not only visually stunning, but one that helps sustain the high-desert ecosystem –– though it has hardly worked alone. Indeed, EDA had important input from the people who live and work in this region. Community workshops set the direction for a “contextually sensitive” development, “connecting the natural and built environment,
‘A living textbook’
as well as the academic and cultural programming of the school, to the broader community,” Senior Design Architect Bob Herman has said.
Principles of permaculture –– a design system which uses resources in a sustainable way to promote the diversity of local plant and wildlife –– have been incorporated by USU-Moab over the last several years to create a system of community gardens throughout the city. The Bee Inspired Gardens, for example, were designed not only to beautify, but also to increase pollinator-friendly landscaping in the area through the use of native plantings.
The current campus is part of that network. More than a garden, the grounds, which are moistened by harvested rainwater, have resulted in a desert-topography-within-a-city that is not only lovely to behold, but entirely self-irrigated.
Local landscape and biological science professionals, led by USU-Moab Sustainable Communities Director Dr. Roslynn Brain, hope the project will help make Moab a world leader in resource-wise design.
In this same spirit, the new campus will include
More room for more classes — and jobs
The first phase of the campus will offer space for an expanded range of vocational, undergraduate and graduate programs that will make the most of regional resources.
Not far south of the new campus, for example, the Synergy Corporation, founded by Moab-based entrepreneur Mitchell May, manufactures and distributes natural nutritional supplements worldwide.
The prospect of USU-Moab becoming a center for natural supplement development excites Steve Hawks, whose background is in Public Health.
For his part, May is particularly intrigued to see what the new campus contributes to the wider Moab community.
“I look at things in terms of legacy, not in terms of the next year or two,” he said. “It took (The Synergy Corporation) 25 years to get where we are. Over the next several years, the benefits will be tremendous: I cannot think of anything as great for this community as building a university system.”
This year, Hawks will develop an all-new program of instruction for the University focused on preventive health, likely to be one of the key offerings at the new campus.
“I think it’s a natural fit for this area, given the interests of the local population and Synergy’s success in the international supplement market,” Hawks said.
a system of “acequias,” concrete channels based on the original ancient Puebloan structures. The channels will originate at the buildings’ downspouts and spread along the grounds to provide gravity-fed irrigation to a landscape of vegetation carefully cultivated to provide shade, ecological diversity and even edible food.
Sunshine is an abundant resource in Moab, and the main building’s design will take full advantage: It will be oriented relative to the sun and the looming cliffs of the Moab Rim to the west of the property. Shaded and exposed areas, calculated to factor in both the angle of the sun as well as the future growth of vegetation, will reduce the amount of energy required to heat and cool the building, and keep it comfortable to work and study in.
To conserve resources even further, photovoltaic and geothermal energy technologies are being incorporated into the building’s systems. Ultimately, the new structure will become a model for the wise use of natural assets. Community and faculty members agree: This is one of the highest, most critical objectives for the new campus.
The design of the USU-Moab campus has been praised for its thoughtful integration into the existing desert landscape. (Image courtesy of EDA Architects Inc.)
Cynthia Gibson, PhD, teaches a business class at the current campus in 2016. (Photo courtesy of USU-Moab)
Entrepreneurs see opportunities
As the campus’s new design takes shape, community stakeholders are also turning a thoughtful eye to the property surrounding its future location. Moabbased developer Mike Bynum, owner of the Aarchway Inn, Zax Restaurant, and other successful local businesses, said he is looking forward to seeing his hometown enjoy some of the same benefits that his alma mater, the University of Colorado at Boulder, brought to that Front Range city (years ago, Boulder had a small, recreation-based economy just as Moab’s is today).
Bynum’s company, Red Rock Partners, own parcels adjacent to the new campus site with the intent to develop workforce and affordable housing. But he shares the vision of the new campus as a major driver for economic diversification in the region, so much so that he’s working closely with USU and SITLA on preliminary plans for the nearby development of the Innovation Center of Moab, which would aim to be an incubator of public/private partnerships.
“There’s enormous potential for the university to spur technological innovation, and the recreation opportunities available in Moab make it an attractive place to recruit talent to,” Bynum said. “I lived in Boulder after I graduated, and I witnessed what they did there (to help spur growth). This is like déjà vu all over again.”
Bright future
The idea of a full-scale university campus for Moab has remained alive through decades of funding pitfalls, land negotiations and planning cycles typical of so enormous a public project.
The community has been at the heart of the process the whole time, SITLA Project Manager for the campus, Troy Herold said.
“SITLA and USU have been working with several design consultants and engineering firms for a few years now to plan a quality project for Moab,” he said. “This has been a collaborative project.”
The continued support and enthusiasm of people within SITLA, USU and the community has been key to all those years of planning finally coming to fruition, according to Moab Mayor Dave Sakrison, who’s described the project as addressing many of the community’s most critical needs, such as essential workforce training and development through technical and higher education.
“It has (an) affordable housing component to it, (and) there’s employment opportunities through the private sector, as well as the other sectors that are involved here. And it provides economic diversification for our commu-
nity and our area,” he has said.
The likely result of all the energy and initiative associated with the new campus? Hundreds (and perhaps eventually, even thousands) of new students; increased employment, now and later; and a new wave of construction, as hotels, shops and restaurants spring up to serve the burgeoning academic community.
“It’s been a long time coming. We’ve been working on this for many years,” Sakrison said of the new campus, and its implications for Moab’s future.
“You bet I’m excited.” n
Graduates prepare to accept their diplomas from USU-Moab in 2015. (Photo courtesy of Moab Sun News)
The courtyard at the heart of the future USU-Moab campus. (Image courtesy of EDA Architects Inc.)
A graduate celebrates in 2015. (Photo courtesy of Moab Sun News)
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CASTLE VALLEY
Man of Many Hats
AS
HE RETIRES FROM REAL ESTATE, JOE KINGSLEY TALKS BUSINESS, NUCLEAR PHYSICS, SCENIC GARBAGE DUMPS — AND HIS PASSION FOR COMMUNITY
Written by Eric Trenbeath and Leslie Vreeland
Joe and Britta Kingsley in Castle Valley in November 2016.
(Photo by Murice D. Miller)
Built in 1856 by John Martin, the original Castle Valley homestead, seen here in 1974, was home to Kingsley for 12 years. He says the most memorable thing about the house is that is was haunted, but that he and his sister “made a deal to share the house with the ghosts.” (Courtesy photo)
When longtime area realtor Joe Kingsley made his way to Castle Valley back in 1973, Moab was a rough-and-dusty, uranium-mining boomtown. Most people who arrived here had mining on their minds in those days –– but Kingsley came to strike gold.
He’d been working as a gold dealer in Salt Lake City when a friend, Dean Luxton, invited him to join in a new way of making money: The plan involved using a series of sluice boxes to separate gold from the Colorado River’s sand.
The boxes were mostly a bust. “We’d work all day and only pull out a few ounces of gold,” Kingsley recalled. “I think we made about 50 cents an hour.”
Yet Kingsley was undaunted. He’d worn a lot of hats en route to Moab: While in college, he’d worked to help clean up the Trinity Site near Socorro, New Mexico, where the first atomic blast was conducted. He’d taught geology and physics at a rural high school near Silver City. He’d been a seasonal park ranger at Carlsbad Caverns where he and his colleagues confirmed that the pesticide DDT was impacting bats.
He’d worked as a nuclear physicist for Douglas Missiles to develop manned space flight, and then lost his security clearance for refusing to support the idea of developing a neutron bomb for use in the war in Viet Nam. “I didn’t go to school for that,” he said. “We were working on power plants. I wanted to work on energy for the common good.”
In short, he was open to new careers –– even false starts. And he liked taking risks. In high school, he would have been considered the person most likely to “get killed on my Harley,” Kingsley once told a Moab Sun News reporter.
In other words, he possessed the soul, and the spirit, of an entrepreneur. And he met his match in
Luxton, who had another plan. “Dean had purchased the old Pace Ranch, and was looking for a partner to help him subdivide and sell off lots,” Kingsley said. “So, I bought in.”
Kingsley built an A-frame building near the entrance to the valley to be used as his real estate office. “I’d sit on that porch and just wait for someone to come in and buy a lot,” he recalled. “We were selling them for $4,995 a piece back then.” At one point, he was down to his last $6.75, and in danger of not being able to make his mortgage payment. Instead of feeling frightened, he felt…thirsty. “My friend Bob Deglas told me there was only one thing left to do, and that was to
buy a six pack,” Kingsley said. “I spent my last $6.75 on beer, and as we sat there drinking it, a fellow pulled up and bought two lots. I was able to make my mortgage payment. And the rest is history.”
In the decades that followed, Kingsley has made an indelible mark on the Moab community, fostering its growth and development and parceling out its real estate. With Luxton, he developed Castle Valley River Ranchos; a few years later, in partnership with A. Dan Holyoak (and now in possession of a real-estate license) he founded Arches Realty. It is the oldest continuously operating real estate company in southeastern Utah.
Castle Valley as it looked before land was developed. (Courtesy photo)
Man of Many Hats
Legendary newsman Charles Kuralt interviews Kingsley for a nationally televised news program in front of the “World’s Most Scenic Garbage Dump” in 1987. (Photo courtesy of Joe Kingsley)
En route to his success in Moab, Kingsley has given back generously. He’s an active Rotarian, and in that role has assisted not only the local community, but the wider world. As part of the Rotary International Club’s “peace project” in 2013, for example, the Moab club donated $1,000 to a crime-reduction program in Colombia. Kingsley said that the club intended to branch to five other countries in South America, plus Mexico, by promoting a philosophy “that seeks to turn people away from a life of crime by offering forgiveness to those who ‘come clean.’” “When you commit violence,” Kingsley explained, “You are hurting yourself and your community.”
He is friend to not only man, but beast: Kingsley’s a member of the Vietnam Dog Handlers Association, a nonprofit “dedicated to never giving up the search to reunite veteran war dog handlers and honor the memory of their canine partners.”
be done to boost the economy, and it was decided that tourism was the route to take.
Longtime Moab resident John Fogg, a friend of Kingsley’s, recalled how he, and Kingsley, and Bob Jones (the owner of Tag-a-Long Expeditions), were all on the chamber of commerce at the time. “We felt that once people found about this place, and saw how beautiful it was,” word would get out, Fogg said. But how to make it happen?
“(The Scenic Dump Contest) is one of the big feathers in Joe’s hat.”
– John Fogg
He’s run the local chapter of the Salvation Army out of his office, and helped establish the local travel council to promote this region.
Kingsley’s perhaps greatest feat of promotion was in 1984, after the crash of the uranium industry, when the Atlas mill closed its doors, and “People were leaving Moab in droves.” Yet again, he sensed opportunity: While others were fleeing town, he began managing the boarded-up buildings the banks had repossessed. “We made more money (that way) than we did selling homes,” he recalled. “You could buy any house in town for less than $30,000.”
Still, it wasn’t enough that Kingsley and some others continued to believe in Moab; the wider world had to see what they saw in it, too. The community held a series of town meetings to debate what could
As the chamber of commerce was kicking around ideas, “a comment was made that even the Moab City Dump was in a setting of scenic splendor unmatched by any other town,” author Tom McCourt recounted in his book, “Cowpokes to Bike Spokes: The Story of Moab, Utah.” “Carrying that idea a little farther down the trail,” why not a “World’s Most Scenic Garbage Dump” contest?
“It was a gem of marketing genius,” McCourt wrote. “Within weeks, newspapers from all over the world were running stories about the contest…Tourists began stopping in town to ask directions to the garbage dump.” One visitor was the legendary newsman Charles Kuralt, who devoted a segment of his whimsical CBS News feature, “On the Road,” to the topic. On February 6, 1987, at the end of a broadcast devoted to the Iranian Arms scandal, the U.S.S.R.’s space program and President Reagan’s birthday, there stood Kuralt, chatting with Fogg and Kingsley about a dump whose marketing-driven allure was proving far stronger than its smell. (Ultimately, according to McCourt, Moab officials agreed to share first-place honors with the City of Kodiak, Alaska, whose dump –– it had to be admitted –– was equally scenic. The two towns became “sister cities” as a result of the contest.)
One of Moab’s most historic buildings, the Poplar Place, in 1885. More than a century later it would become a much-loved restaurant, which would suffer an extensive fire and would be rebuilt by Kingsley. (Courtesy photo)
With Miss Utah, Kris Perkins, in 1986. (Courtesy photo)
Man of Many Hats
“That is one of the big feathers in Joe’s hat, pulling that one off,” Fogg said of the competition, a marketing coup that set Moab on a new path. “He sees something and he grabs on to it. He’s a very sensitive guy, passionate about what he does. And he has a real sense of community spirit.”
Friends and colleagues consistently praise Kingsley for his philanthropy and boosterism. “He loves this community,” says Suzanne Lewis, a real estate broker who has worked alongside Kingsley. “If there is anything he thinks the community needs, he jumps right in there and does it.”
Lewis came to work for Kingsley and A. Dan Holyoak at Arches Realty in 1994. Lewis described their “10, 10, and 10” policy, through which they would self-finance properties for clients. (The terms were 10 percent down, at 10 percent interest, over 10 years.) “Joe really helped a lot of people get into homes,” she said. “A lot of young people, and people who were struggling –– he gave them a leg up.”
Kingsley has continued to re-invent his career since arriving in Moab 43 years ago. In addition to his gold mining stint and real estate businesses, he’s the owner of “Sore No More,” a popular pain-relief ointment, and “GloGerm,” a company that sells kits that show how poorly people wash their hands. Major universities (Johns Hopkins is one satisfied client) and restaurants (McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Arby’s) use GloGerm in their training. According to the Deseret News, the Canadian government requested 100,000 of the
kits, and the World Health Organization wanted 3,000 more. (“I don’t want to be facetious, but business is good,” Kingsley told the paper.)
In addition to his career selling buildings, you could also say Kingsley has been a builder, or at least, re-builder. He not only owned the Poplar Place restaurant (now Twisted Sistas), “the vortex of Moab social life” in the 1970s and 80s, according to Jim Stiles, editor of the Canyon Country Zephyr ––he saved it when it was gutted by fire. “Nothing remained…except the four brick exterior walls, and they had been so badly weakened by the blaze that they could no longer support any kind of structural load,” Stiles recounted at the time. “The logical next step should have been to bulldoze the bricks and start over. But (Kingsley) could not bring himself to give the order. Instead, he literally rebuilt a new bar within the four walls. If you look closely, you can see huge vertical beams inside the building that bear all the weight of the second floor and the roof. Thanks to Joe, at least a part of the Poplar Place survived.”
Kingsley is 80 years old. He retired from his real estate job in December. “I’m not going to slow down, though,” he said. “I’m just going to be redirected. My wife has an agenda.”
Kingsley and Britta were married in 2011; he says he is looking forward to spending the next 20 years together so they can celebrate their silver anniversary. “I’m extremely blessed,” he said.
He summed up his life’s philosophy this way: “Be happy and help your neighbor.” n
Kingsley greets the newly elected Utah Governor, Jon Huntsman, Jr., at the Grand Center in Moab in 2005. (Courtesy photo)
The first meeting of the Castle Valley Property Owners Association in 1981. Back row Bob Deglas, Hershel Nokes, unidentified. Front row Valli Smouse and Kingsley. (Photo courtesy of Joe Kingsley)
Kingsley in 1977. (Courtesy photo)
Long-time Moab resident and business owner Izzy Nelson standing on the hood of his truck in 1986, in advance of a parade for the “Most Scenic Dump Contest.” (Photo courtesy of Joe Kingsley)
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START AT THE CORNER
Charming 3 bed, 1.5 bath, 1,215 sf home on a great .18 acre corner lot in the desirable east side of downtown. Perfect first home or an excellent long-term rental investment! Lovely upgrades including hardwood & tile floors. Enclosed patio, fenced backyard, 2 car garage.
PRIVATE RETREAT Beautiful 2 bed, 2 bath, 1,767 sf home off-grid home in a peaceful setting w/ stunning views on 80 private acres northeast of Monticello Artistic, hand-crafted detail and an open feel throughout. Private second floor Master w/ office/sitting room. Solar electric, propane, wood stove, cistern, well & septic in place. $289,000 #1386941
PERFECT DESERT SETTING Comfortable, well-maintained 3 bed, 2 bath, 1,170 sf home on 1.09 acres w/ sweeping red rock and mountain views! Open and bright and move-in ready with great private Master Suite. Gorgeous vistas from the porch & covered deck! Beautifully xeriscaped lot. Perfect starter or long-term rental investment! $219,000 #1405941
Moab’s Real Estate Source:
BEAUTIFUL VIEWS .91 acre parcel in Buena Vista Estates. Creek-side, mature trees, just stunning! $129,000 #1421378
Navajo Ridge Lot 6B, 2.3 acres with stunning Millcreek views! $225,000 #1342619
SANDSTONE MAJESTY Beautiful
high desert surroundings; 12.99 ac Flat Iron Mesa lot, peaceful, quiet setting. $110,000 #1323606
VIEWS OF NATURE
Gorgeous 106.4 acre site just over 7 miles from the center of Monticello. Breathtaking! $199,600 #1291016
FLAT IRON MESA Not too far, but a world away from the hustle & bustle! Gorgeous 13.30 acres. $85,000 #1396968
SPANISH VALLEY ACRE Beautiful building lot in a great setting! Flat, easy to build, water/sewer impact fees paid! $119,000 #1362246
BUILD AT BLU VISTA Flat, ready to build half acre lot. Utilities stubbed, water/sewer impact fees paid! $89,000 #1376351
BEAUTIFUL DOUBLE LOT
Spacious 2.61 acre double lot. Gorgeous site surrounded by recreation! $125,000 #1316168
SLICKROCK VIEWS Excellent 2.5
acre building parcel, breathtaking red rock & mountain views. No CCRS or HOA! $215,000 #1412772
GOLF COURSE BUILDING LOT
Excellent .5 acre parcel, just minutes from the first tee! $119,000 #1415505
RARE PACK CREEK PARCEL
Beautiful 4.05 acre building lot in lovely Pack Creek. Stunning setting! $250,000 #1328749
FOUR CORNERS DESTINATION
Beautiful parcel in a gorgeous setting! 1.32 ac, power, water, phone/DSL. $50,000 #1367900
ABSOLUTELY STUNNING Kayenta Heights, 3.66 gorgeous acres perched above the valley. Seller Financing! $250,000 #1346908
READY TO BUILD Gorgeous half acre lot in Buena Vista Subdivision, perfect location for your dream home. $98,000 #1362218
SPECTACULAR SETTING!
Navajo Ridge Lot 2B, 2.93 acres, breathtaking red rock and mountain views! $225,000 #1342867
TOP OF THE WORLD VIEWS Beautiful views in all directions! 4.8 acres in Kayenta Heights. Hike from your door! $139,000 #1141959
YOUR ISLAND IN THE SKY Kayenta Heights view lot, dramatic landscape. 3.23 acres, Seller Financing! $189,900 #1260380
EXTREME VIEWS Stunning views and terrian atop Kayenta Heights! Perch your dream home on this 2.60 ac lot! $200,000 #1399391
THROUGH THE BACK OF THE ARCH “Back of the Arch Cottages” lot at Wilson Arch; a perfect get-away! $35,000 #1282521
MILLCREEK RETREAT A beautiful canyon setting in a gorgeous redrock landscape! Just over 58 acres, tucked into a canyon with creekside spaces, red rock walls framing the canyon floor, & sweeping up onto the flat, eastern mesa. What a wonderful site for a one-of-a-kind private retreat!
$1,450,000 #1365142
MOAB RV PARK Fabulous investment, future potential!
8.75 ac commercial land on Hwy 191 just over County line. 13 site RV park w/ hookups; 1 bed/1 bath cabin; shower house w/ lavatories, laundry, & 4 shower rooms; power, gas, well & septic for 16 units; developable land! $775,000 #1402023 Lots Starting at $45,000!
LIVE/WORK/LOVE MOAB
Absolutely unique opportunity in the Moab market! Established, incomeproducing, easily managed selfservice storage business, along with a lovely private 3 bed, 2.5 bath home with equine facilities, all on 4.24 acres just off Highway 191 with stunning views! “Skyline Storage” offers 74 income-producing units, office with restroom, room for growth. The 1,993 sf home features gorgeous light, vaulted ceilings, wonderful space. $986,000 #1412726
SUBDIVISION OPPORTUNITY
24.51 acres of land set above town with sweeping views, yet just a few minutes from the center of Moab! Developable/Subdivide-able land in a beautiful setting. No covenants in place, subdivide and craft a new residential development! Now $645,000 #1374268
TWO UNIQUE PARCELS
Each perfect for your dream home! These special West side acreage parcels abut one another and would make an extraordinary in-town estate site! Utilities and access from McKay Place; stunning views! $194,500 each parcel: #1417865 6.41 acres, #1417853 6.27 acres
MULBERRY GROVE A truly special in-town location for your home, along the Millcreek Parkway. Eleven acres of deeded open space; gorgeous creek-side setting. Ecologically-based, community-minded! Few lots remain; pedestrian & drive-in lots to suit all abilities. Priced from $89,000 to $112,000
DOWNTOWN LUXURY INN W/ DEVELOPMENT POTENTIAL
The Tangren House Luxury Inn, a beautiful Victorian-era home lovingly restored in the Greek Revival style, offers lavish accommodations less than half a block off Main. Beautiful guest spaces, off-street parking, & .50 acre of highly coveted Commercial 3 Zoned land! Build out the property to suit - additional lodging units, office space, living quarters, more. Truly special development opportunity in the heart of Moab’s downtown walking district! $1,095,000 #1389541
BRIGHT FUTURE! Fully platted & engineered 149 acre residential development, surrounded by two golf courses, two National Parks, mountain ranges & recreation! 72 acreage lots, each selected and sited for exceptional views, mature vegetation, and quality building sites. Water rights & septic approvals in place; power and telephone/DSL utilities are available available. Perfect mid-point between Moab and Monticello. CC&Rs in place, ready for the developer with a vision for the future! $1,700,000 #1286466
The Devils Garden Trail in Arches National Park.
TAKE A BREAK
12 FAVORITE WINTER HIKES
THE QUIET BEAUTY OF AN OFF-SEASON TRAIL
Winter’s chill means the opportunity to enjoy the quiet, uncrowded beauty of some of Moab’s finest hiking trails. Layer up, take water and snacks, and always use caution when crossing icy terrain. Trekking poles and traction devices (like Yaktrax) make winter hiking that much more fun and safe, and are readily available from gear shops in town. Remember, no dogs allowed on hikes located in national parks. Trails are presented here loosely in order of difficulty.
SCOTT M. MATHESON WETLANDS PRESERVE
Easy strolling on a well-maintained path through beautiful, unique wetlands alongside the Colorado River. The trail is about one mile in length. Enjoy the hush of winter in this lush environment, and be sure to take a few minutes to sit in the peaceful wooden pagoda that sits elegantly at the end of an elevated boardwalk. No dogs.
Access the Matheson trailhead about one mile down Kane Creek Boulevard.
PARK AVENUE
Though there are no major arches along this route, this one-mile-long easy hike will instantly immerse the hiker in some of the classic entrada sandstone scenery found throughout Arches National Park. Among the many rock formations the aptly named “Three Gossips.” What do you imagine they are saying to each other?
Park Avenue is located just under three miles from the Arches National Park entrance.
WINDOWS
The land of big, spectacular arches. The windows hike is a mere one mile round-trip, but delivers the visitor to three giants of the arch world: the North Window, the South Window and Turret Arch. The Windows are situated on some of the higher-elevation land in the park, and are often visible from viewpoints far outside the park.
Located just under 12 miles from the Arches National Park entrance.
BIGHORN OVERLOOK
Bask in the all-day sun, thanks to this hike’s mesa-top location in Dead Horse Point State Park. Take in the expansive views of Shafer Canyon’s east branch. An easy, but memorable 2.5 miles round-trip starting at the visitors center. Want more? Add on the trail that goes south to the Rim Overlook or the Shafer Canyon Overlook. Take Hwy. 191 north to Hwy. 313 and go 13.8 miles to the Dead Horse Point State Park turnoff.
SOUTH FORK SEVENMILE
Acres of soft beach sand fill the floor of this wide and pretty canyon. The first couple of miles have almost no elevation gain. Good for kids and well-behaved dogs. Always clean up after your pet.
Take Hwy 191 to Hwy 313. Go 2 miles up Hwy 313 and park in the small lot on the left next to the road.
COPPER RIDGE
Hike on easy terrain along a quiet Jeep trail that meanders through a pretty valley north of Moab. Hike a little or hike a lot. Many options exist for hiking the singletrack trails that intersect with the Copper Ridge trail. Drive north of the Colorado River Bridge 14 miles on Hwy. 191 and turn right for Klondike Bluffs. Park at the trailhead in 2.8 miles. The first quarter-mile overlaps with Klondike Bluffs Trail.
NEGRO BILL CANYON (GRANDSTAFF CANYON)
Moab’s most controversially named place is also one of its most beautiful. A moderate two-mile jaunt through diverse terrain along a small perennial stream leads to one of the longest natural rock spans in Utah: Morning Glory Natural Bridge. Trailhead located 5 miles up the River Road from the Colorado River Bridge
KLONDIKE BLUFFS
Land of the dinosaurs. Extraordinary opportunity to actually walk in the footsteps of giants of the jurassic. Klondike Bluffs is colorful environment of stark white
slickrock ridges interspersed with pinion and juniper trees. Entire trail is about 10 miles round-trip, but shorter journeys are enjoyable here as well, and the dino tracks are encountered after a couple of miles. Drive north of the Colorado River Bridge 14 miles on Hwy. 191 and turn right for Klondike Bluffs. Park at the trailhead in 2.8 miles.
LANDSCAPE ARCH
Will it last another ten minutes or 10,000 years? This mind-blowing, gravity-defying arch is nearly a football field long and appears wafer-thin in spots. See this peerless geological specimen before it’s gone. Many other arches along the way.
In Arches National Park. Park at the Devil’s Garden trailhead 18 miles from the park entrance.
FISHER TOWERS
Prepare to be amazed. The namesake towers that are seen along this 4.4-mile moderate trail are outstanding, literally. Some of them towering nearly 1,000 feet above you, the Fisher Towers are impressive, even by canyon country standards. The fantastical erosion is partly a result of the towers being mostly composed of one of the softest types of desert sandstone. Drive 21 miles up the River Road (State Route 128) from Hwy. 191. Take a right at Fisher Towers turnoff and go 2 miles to parking area.
DELICATE ARCH
The 70-foot-tall free-standing sandstone arch known around the world and promoted on Utah’s license plates was not even part of the original Arches National Monument, but was added 10 years later when the monument was enlarged in 1938. Use extra caution near icy slopes on this hilly three-mile-roundtrip hike. In Arches National Park, 13 miles from the Visitor’s Center.
MOAB RIM
The locals’ favorite. An accessible but strenuous workout, the Moab Rim trail climbs nearly 1,000 feet in just a mile to a birds-eye perch above the Moab Valley. Marvel at the giant ledges that Jeeps manage to conquer during the warm weather season. On the way back down get a breathtaking view to the west, down the Colorado River canyon.
Take Main Street to Kane Creek Blvd. and go 3 miles to the parking area on the left.
The Moab Music Festival Winterlude Star Hall moabmusicfest.org 435-259-7003
FEB. 18
Moab Red Hot 55k/33k GrassRootsEvents.net 435-260-0886
FEB. 24-26
DOCNA Dog Agility Competition Old Spanish Trail Arena 970-261-2148
GET OUT & GO!
FEB. 25-26
The Trashion Show Woody’s Tavern 435-260-8931
MAR. 4-5
Quilting in the Red Rocks Quilt Show The Grand Center moabquilts.blogspot.com 435-259-6447
MAR. 4-6
Moab International Film Festival Star Hall moabfilmfestival.org 801-309-6887
MAR. 11-14
Moab Skinny Tire Festival skinnytireevents.com 435-260-8889
MAR. 18
Canyonlands Half Marathon & 5 Mile Run Colorado River Road moabhalfmarathon.com / 435-259-4525
MAR. 25
Behind the Rocks Ultra Behind the Rocks Wilderness Area madmooseevents.com 719-373-3376
MAR. 25-27
Moab Rocks Mountain Bike Stage Race transrockies.com/moab-rocks call 877-373-3376
APR. 8
Art Walk Galleries throughout town moabartwalk.com • 435-259-6272
APR. 8-16
Easter Jeep Safari Various Trails RR6W.com • 435-259-ROCK
APR. 28-30
Moab April Action Car Show Swanny Park moabaprilaction.org 435-260-1948
MAY. 5-6
Gran Fondo Moab La Sal Loop Road granfondomoab.com 435-259-6294
MAY. 13
Art Walk Galleries throughout town moabartwalk.com 435-259-6272
MAY. 13
Back of Beyond Paddle Race Colorado River backofbeyondsup.com 435-210-4665
MAY. 29
Memorial Day
JUNE. 1-3
Canyonlands PRCA Rodeo Old Spanish Trail Arena moabcanyonlandsrodeo.com 435-259-4852
All photos courtesy of Moab Sun News
JUNE. 3
Thelma & Louise Half Marathon and Relay Potash Road moabhalfmarathon.com 435-259-4525
JUNE. 10
Art Walk
Galleries throughout town moabartwalk.com 435-259-6272
JULY. 4
Independence Day
JULY. 31- AUG. 11
25th Moab Music Festival Multiple venues moabmusicfest.org 435-259-7003
SEP. 8-12
Blazer Bash
Various area trails blazerbash.com 970-834-2884
SEP. 9
Art Walk
Galleries throughout town moabartwalk.com 435-259-6272
SEP. 23
Moab Century Tour skinnytireevents.com 435-260-8889
OCT. 9 Columbus Day
OCT. 14
Art Walk Galleries throughout town moabartwalk.com 435-259-6272
OCT. 22
The Other Half Colorado River Road moabhalfmarathon.com 435-259-4525
OCT. 26-29
Moab Ho Down Mountain Bike Festival Various locations moabhodown.comor 435-259-4688
OCT. 29-NOV. 3
Moab Folk Camp
Moab Arts and Rec. Center moabfolkcamp.com 603-731-3240
NOV. 3-5
Moab Folk Festival Multiple venues moabfolkfestival.com 435-259-3198
NOV. 4-5
Moab Trail Marathon, 1/2 Marathon, and Adventure 5k. Plus Kids K. Kane Creek moabtrailmarathon.com 970-389-4838
NOV. 11 Veterans Day
NOV. 11
Art Walk Galleries throughout town moabartwalk.com 435-259-6272
NOV. 18
Dead Horse Ultra madmooseevents.com 719-429-9501
NOV. 23
Thanksgiving Day
DEC. 2
Winter Sun 10K moabhalfmarathon.com 435-259-4525
All listing subject to change. Moab Area Real Estate Magazine does not guarantee these listings. To submit your event to future calendars call 435-259-6261
Has CC&Rs, zoned RR, water & sewer taps are paid. PRICE REDUCED! #1316256 / $257,000
Predicates Kayenta Heights 5.10 AC. Native vegetation, outcropping rock sculpture throughout, multiple private areas to build. Enjoy starry nights & desert silence as you enjoy beautiful views in every direction. #1397580 / $250,000
Pristine 5.22 Acre Lot in Kayenta Heights with 360 degree views. Property has survey markers and street access. Seller has existing architectural house plans, included in sale of property. PRICE REDUCED! #1398398 / $140,000
Excellent 1.43 Acre Lot in Estrella Estates with 360 degree views. Build your dream home here. #1416832 / $111,000
Pacheco Meadows, Blanding. Building Lots for upscale rural living. Utilities, CCRs, and sweet water well in place. Lot #1 has 2.03 acre. #1351385 / $29,900
