Before I get into today’s blog topic, let me just give you a quick story from this past week…

My wife and I are both huge football fans.  NFL football, to be exact, since even though I am as proud a Canadian as you will ever meet, I just don’t understand, and can’t stomach, the CFL.

To be more specific, we are both football fans in general.  Football at all levels.

We’ve been to NFL games in New Orleans and Chicago (both Saints games), and a college football game at LSU, which was probably one of the oddest experiences of both our lives – just think of every Amercian-made movie about college – it was like that.  Story another time…

One thing we’ve always wanted to do as attend a high school football game, say, in Texas.  If you’ve watched the movie or TV show, “Friday Night Lights,” you know what I’m talking about.  In certain parts of the country, they take high school football more seriously than college football.  These little towns are all about their high school teams.  Watch the Netflix show “QB1” and you’ll see what I mean.

We come to Idaho every summer, but we’re usually here in early-August, and we miss the start of the high school football season.

But not this year.

This year, the trip was a late decision as work and life are both very busy, and we found ourselves here until the 28th of August.

Well wouldn’t you know it, the season opener was on August 25th!

The Teton Redskins vs. the Jackson Broncos.

“Teton Valley” comprises both Driggs & Victor, which are towns eight miles apart, as well as Tetonia which is further north of Driggs, and Alta, Wyoming, which is technically in another state, but is just over the border of Idaho, essentially down the road from Driggs.

My wife and I were absolutely, positively, jet-set on attending this game, which was a home game for Teton.

At the golf course on Friday morning, a young man walked into the pro shop behind me, and the head pro said, “David, look at this guy.  How old do you think he is?”  Standing before me was a hulking man, about 6’4″, 220 pounds if I had to guess, with a full beard.  I figured this was a trick question, as he looked about 20’ish, so I said, “17?”

Fifteen, I was told.

This man was a kid.  And he was 15.

“Do you play football?” I asked him.

He smiled from ear-to-ear, although I could tell he was trying desperately not to.

“Yeah, I do,” he humbly said.

“Teton or Jackson?” I asked, like asking a townie if they were First Baptist or Southern Baptist.

“Teton” he said, proudly.

“Well alright then,” I told him, “We’ll see you at the game tonight.”

He was absolutely beaming.  Imagine a 15-year-old kid being told that somebody was coming to watch him and his team play football?

Phil, my buddy in the pro shop, told him, “David’s from Toronto, Canada.  He’s probably an Argonauts fan.”  Phil had some extended family in Toronto; we live on a very small globe.

“I don’t watch the Canadian game,” I told the kid.  “There’s three downs, the backfield receivers and backs are all allowed to be in motion, the field is 15-yards wider, the end zone is almost three times as large – it’s just not a good game.”

Many Canadians would disagree, but that’s just my opinion.

“I’m looking forward to seeing you guys play tonight,” I told the kid.  “What position do you play?”

“Middle linebacker,” he said.  “And tight end.”

“Ironman football?” I asked in amazement?  “You guys play both ways?  That’s awesome.”

Later that night, my wife and I found ourselves at a stadium that would rival many Canadian university stadiums, watching four small towns come together to cheer on their boys……..all twenty-two of them.

Twenty-two.

For those of you that know football, you know this makes zero sense.

There are eleven players on the field at once.  The NFL roster is 53-men.  NCAA college football teams are allowed to have up to 125 rostered players, and usually bring 70 to games, often duplicating jersey numbers among players.

This little team from Teton Valley had twenty-two players in total, and most of their kids went “Ironman” and played both offence and defence.

Jackson had 43 players on their roster, and they took control of the game early.

With Teton down 20-6 in the 3rd quarter, I told my wife, “Don’t call it a comeback,” channelling my inner LL Cool J.

My wife was more interested in the going’s-on at the stadium.  And how could she not be?

It was like a combination of a thousand movies we had seen.

At halftime, a group of about 20-25 kids from Jackson made their way down the stands, and my wife pointed to the girl in the front: “See that girl?” she said.  “That’s the leader of the pack.  She’s the ‘it’ girl.”

And in front was an attractive blonde girl, big smile, full of confidence, happy-go-lucky, leading the charge.  Just like you’d see in every American high school movie.

“And that’s her boyfriend,” my wife said.

Glued to the hip of the ‘it-girl’ was a tall, good-looking kid, with a distinct hair cut, well-dressed for a resident of a farm town, who walked with his chest out, confident but not showy.

The group walked almost in order of seniority.

And these were seniors, after all.  The school year had just started, and whether it’s Dazed & Confused, or some other movie you want to make reference to, senior year was upon these kids, and they knew it.

“She’s probably a Britney,” I told my wife.  “She looks like a Britney.”

“Definitely a Britney,” my wife said.

Where Britney went, the kids went.

And the boyfriend?

We decided he was a “Tate.”

Could have been a “Chase,” but Tate was more becoming.

Teton narrowed the score to 20-12, for some reason trying a 2-point conversion (I don’t think they had a kicker), and then scored again on a fumble-recovery TD; a “scoop-and-score.”  They converted the 2-pointer, and tied the game at 20-20.

Britney, Tate, and their group of loyal followers were a little quiet.

The Teton cheer-team was rubbing it in; running giant flags up and down the pavilion, motioning toward the Jackson supporters with a “teary-cheek” motion, much to Britney & Tate’s dismay.

With 3-minutes remaining, Jackson had the ball and needed only a field goal to take the lead.

But with my wife and I in attendance, all the way from Toronto to see a high school football game in the middle of nowhere, the outcome was preordained.

Teton intercepted the ball, and quickly marched down the field to score, convert the 2-pointer, and make it 28-20.

Jackson did get the ball back, only with about two minutes left.  It would have taken a touchdown and a successful 2-point conversion to tie the game back up.  And with Jackson crossing midfield, and making that low-percentage play look realistic, Teton’s middle-linebacker intercepted a pass to effectively end the game.

Who was that middle linebacker?

The kid I met at the golf course earlier that morning.  Luke something-or-other.  Hard to miss at that size, and with a vertical over ten-feet high, not exactly the player you want to try to throw over!

The whole experience was just surreal, from beginning to end.

I wanted to rush the field with the rest of the Teton Valley kids, but my wife told me I might look out-of-place.

We left the game, found our Toyota with ease in a sea of Dodge and Ford pick-up trucks, and headed home with the rest of the gang like lemmings following each-other down the highway.

Anyways, I said that would be a “quick” story, and it’s basically taken over the blog…

The next day, we found ourselves back in Jackson, Wyoming, where we’ve been essentially every day on this trip as there’s a lot more to see and do there.

While taking a shortcut through the residential area to avoid the congestion on the main drag, we literally happened upon the Springhill Suites, which was the condominium I profiled in last Friday’s blog.

This is a hotel-condo, much like we see with, say, the Soho Metropolitan at 36 Blue Jays Way, the Pantages at 210 Victoria Street, One King West at, well, 1 King Street West, and a handful of others in Toronto’s downtown core.

On the fourth storey of this quaint 4-storey building, are the condominium units, eight of which are currently for sale, as I wrote in last week’s blog.

They look gorgeous, albeit a little pricey.

The average around $1,000 USD per square foot, and while I know nothing about the Jackson condo market, I do know that this is pricey.

Why?

Because there are only nine condos on that fourth floor.

Nine condos in the building, and eight are available for sale.

The building is new, but still – I’d have expected to see better sales than one out of nine!  And again, I say this with absolutely zero knowledge of this market…

Here’s a description of the building I found from the developer:

The building is primarily a wood structure that sits atop a Post Tension slab with underground parking below the hotel. The exterior is finished with wood siding and bonderized metal with the elevator and stair towers being a board formed concrete to give it a Jackson Hole feel.  There is also a unique steel framed canopy that wrap the first and third levels. It is the first building in Jackson, to be above 3 stories in height, and is unique in the fact that the 4th level condos are privately owned.

But it wasn’t so much the hotel-condo that caught my eye as we drove through Jackson on Saturday, but rather that which was across the street.

Here’s the video, which I should have led with, as I fear I might have lost a few of the readers right about the time I segued off to Britney & Tate, but nevertheless…

Great building site!

Perhaps a sad day for the once-proud Western Hotel, but I’m thinking that pride likely peaked around the time Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane were big players in the west.

That’s a 0.34 acre site.

So just as I had asked last Friday, to those of you with zero knowledge of the market, at what price do you think this site is priced?

Guesses?

Anybody?

Do I need to keep writing words, and putting dashes to space out what you’re reading so you might actually make a guess?

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$6,000,000.

And again, with my zero knowledge of this market, I’d have though the number was around $10,000,000.

Why?

Because this isn’t just a piece of land.

It’s an approved site.

From the Sotheby’s website:

As one of the few, remaining, approved final development plans within the Town of Jackson, this property provides a unique opportunity to quickly break ground. One floor of commercial space can be developed with below grade parking, and two floors plus a loft of residential square footage above. An approved and entitled master plan is in place with a blended 2.0 FAR in conjunction with the Marriott development. Owner is a licensed Wyoming real estate broker.

But what does “approved” actually mean down here?

This isn’t Toronto, that’s for sure.

In Toronto, where developers literally run the downtown core, and politicians stand by like porters at the baggage-claim, you could tear down the church where Mother Teresa was baptized in order to build a condo.

Jackson is different.

The northeast corner of Jackson Square used to have “Moo’s Ice Cream Shop;” a relic for as long as I can remember.  This year, we showed up and saw the site was demolished, and in Toronto, that would mean a 62-storey condo was on the way.

But not in Jackson.

Here, that means a 2-storey bank is being constructed.

As the description of the Springhill Suites stated above, it was the “first building in Jackson to be above 3-storeys in height.”

First, as in, ever.

So what do we make of this $6,000,000 development site?

In Toronto, you’d see the 4-storey precedent, ask the city for 9-storeys, and settle at 6.  Wham, bam, thank you………developers, for the levies, tax base, and money to pay our overblown expenditures.

Here in Jackson, 3-storeys means 3-storeys.

I’m shy about $6M of the $6M, but if anybody wants to chat, you know where to reach me.

Well folks, that’s it for my trip to Idaho, 2018.

I’ll be back this week, ready to take on the fall market.

Ready if you are, I should say.

I don’t want to sound like a cheerleader here, but I think this fall is going to be a doozie…