Photo: Pagosa Springs Apartments, December 2025
The Homebuyer Misery Index rose in all counties in the latter half of 2024 and into 2025. Home prices and mortgage rates remained near historic highs in 2024–2025, worsening affordability in most Colorado counties…Only four counties showed slight improvements…
— from CommonSenseInstitute.org, June 2025
At their December 16 regular meeting, the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners approved a letter of support for the proposed purchase of a local motel-into-apartments-conversion called Pagosa Springs Apartments, located on Village Drive near the City Market shopping center. The apartments are, however, located within the municipal limits, and are subject to Town regulations rather than County controls.
Formerly, the building was a motel called Pagosa Springs Inn & Suites. The conversion was supported by the Town of Pagosa Springs as a potential way to address our local housing crisis.
We wrote about that conversion, from a motel into tiny apartment units, back in 2022, and posted a price comparison for rental units in the Pagosa area. In 2022, the Pagosa Springs Apartments were being marketed online on the Nuance Industries website, where we could judge their affordability.
At the top left of this screen shot, we have a sample 725-square-foot one-bedroom apartment such as are available occasionally here in Pagosa, priced at around $1,300 a month. That rental cost is not affordable to many of our working households.
In 2022, thanks to policy support from the Town government, it appeared that we would soon have 339-square-foot one-bedroom apartments available in the Pagosa Springs Apartments, also for $1,300 a month.
Half the space, same price.
According to the recent Housing Needs Assessment funded by Archuleta County with the help of state grants, our community is in dire need of about 344 rental units for households that work at low-paid tourism industry jobs, or in retail. We don’t need ‘for-sale housing’ for this demographic — earning 51%-80% Area Median Income — because for-sale housing in Pagosa Springs is priced well out of reach for these households.
For families working in higher-paid industries — government, construction, real estate, health care — the need is for for-sale housing in the $300,000-$500,000 price range. Maybe 356 units needed? Plus a certain number of rental units for this demographic.
To keep the economic wheels turning.
You can download that 2025 housing report here.
The Town government, in approving the conversion of Pagosa Springs Inn & Suites motel into the Pagosa Springs Apartments, concluded that the conversion would help provide low-cost housing. But the conversion, taking place as it did during the COVID-generated inflation of building materials, proved to be more expensive than the Monument, Colorado-based company had imagined.
The company then struggled to get the apartments rented. Not easy, when you’re charging $1,300 a month for a motel room. Reportedly, Wolf Creek Ski Area stepped in and rented 14 units for seasonal employees, which may have helped the owners avoid bankruptcy.
More recently, the Apartment owners have been in negotiations with a Colorado Springs-based non-profit housing organization called SolidGround Solutions, and earlier this week, the Archuleta BOCC approved a letter of support for SolidGround Solutions in its quest to find grant support for the purchase.
From that December 16 letter:
Archuleta County is pleased to offer this letter of support for the affordable housing preservation project proposed for SolidGround Solutions. The county recognizes the significant need for stable, attainable housing for local residents, especially those who make up the essential workforce that supports the well-being and economic vitality of our community.
SolidGround Solutions is pursuing the acquisition of Pagosa Springs Apartments, located at 519 Village Drive, consisting of 98 units. SolidGround Solutions plans to offer AMIs in the 60-70% range and, if possible, lower, depending on the funding available. The county commissioners understand that this project intends to create and preserve long-term affordable housing for residents who already live and work within our community. This aligns directly with the county’s goals of reducing displacement, retaining workers, and supporting community stability. We are excited that this project has recently been awarded a pre-development funding award through the Colorado Department of Local Affairs (DOLA).
The Archuleta County commissioners offer this letter of support to SolidGround Solutions for the acquisition of Pagosa Springs Apartments, as this project represents a valuable opportunity to create and preserve affordable housing, improve resident stability, and strengthen the long-term economic resilience of the City of Pagosa Springs.
We look forward to continued collaboration with SolidGround Solutions as the project progresses and appreciate their commitment to serving the residents of our community.
The Town of Pagosa Springs issued a nearly identical letter of support on December 4.
For clarification, a one-person household earning about $50,000 a year qualifies for a deed-restricted “70% AMI (Area Median Income)” apartment in Archuleta County.
A two-person household at 70% AMI earns about $57,000 annually, according to Colorado Housing and Finance Authority. A three-person household qualifies for housing support at $64,000 a year.
The maximum rent for a one-bedroom apartment, according to these CHFA limits, is $1,330 a month. So then, about what Pagosa Springs Apartments is currently charging for a converted motel room. That comes to about $16,000 per year. But I’m not clear if this number includes utilities — the cost of which have been climbing in recent years,
According to numbers published in the 2025 Housing Needs Assessment, an average full-time salary in Pagosa’s tourism/retail industries is around $30,000-$35,000. A sizable percentage of the Pagosa workforce is unmarried and meeting their needs with a single income. This is in contrast to the retiree population, which consists largely of married couples with pension and investment incomes.
Individuals in those low-wage industries — retail, accommodations, entertainment, recreation — cannot easily afford $1,330 a month. I was told recently by a person familiar with the Pagosa Springs Apartments that some of the tiny units have become uncomfortably overcrowded, as low-wage workers take on roommates to help make ends meet.
Meanwhile, an estimated 1,000 Archuleta County homes and condos have been converted into vacation rentals to accommodate our growing tourism industry.
There’s little doubt that our local governments have taken steps to try and address the housing crisis, as evidenced by the BOCC letter of support for SoldGround Solutions.
There’s also little doubt that that an ever-expanding tourism industry is one of the key causes of the housing crisis.