Take a first look at pristine arches, cliffs that could become a Red River Gorge resort

Lexington Herald Leader – 8/13/2020 (reprinted)

By Linda Blackford
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SLADE

The logging road led straight up through through a tangle of tulip poplars, sassafras and blackberry thickets that shaded the path to a dappled darkness until our guide said casually, look up there. Off to the right, high above our heads, the sun broke through a clearing above a huge sandstone arch, nearly as big as Natural Bridge.

Blue sky filtered through Adventure Arch’s semi-circle, carved by water and wind for millions of years into smooth curves and formations. The rocks are dotted with bumps and tiny bowls of iron deposits, the metal that gives the Red River its name. Adventure Arch is as massive and awe-inspiring as the other arches in the Red River Gorge, the ones that are explored so continuously by hikers that the popular saying is the Gorge is being “loved to death.”

Only no one was there.

No one except Ian Teal, who agreed to give the Herald-Leader a tour of nearly 1,000 acres he owns right next to the Slade exit off the Mountain Parkway that has become the center of a maelstrom over development, economics and environmentalism. This pristine space — which Teal estimates has as many as 15-20 arches on its clifflines —is probably the top pick for what’s being described as a destination resort, a gateway project to finally bring prosperity to Eastern Kentucky through what’s undoubtedly one of the state’s most beloved places, the hiking, climbing mecca of cliffs and arches and trails known as the Red River Gorge.

Ian Teal poses for a portrait near Adventure Arch, located on property he owns near the Slade exit off the Mountain Parkway, close to the Natural Bridge State Park, in Powell County, Ky., on Friday, Aug. 7, 2020. The Red River Economic Development LLC has an option on Teal’s property to develop a “destination resort.” Ryan C. Hermens RHERMENS@HERALD-LEADER.COM

The project is surrounded by big expectations and big objections, and in the middle of it is a guy from Cincinnati who first visited the Gorge as a Boy Scout and just kept coming back until he moved there. Teal owns Red River Gorge Cabin Rentals, the Gorge Underground, and other properties he wants to develop. He’s a real estate guy who kept piecing together parcels of property behind the Slade exit off the Mountain Parkway until he and his late wife, Sandy, had their jewel.

“The vision was to do a large development or a large hotel, just to be able to share this place with the public and to provide jobs and employment,” said Teal, who often comes to this property to hike with his Springer Spaniel, Star.

Teal envisions creating a 10-acre lake more or less in the middle valley between clifflines that a hotel or lodge could overlook, leaving plenty of room for hiking and some parcels for cabins or weekend houses in various green pockets of the land.

“Our vision was pretty small, but when a group comes in with an idea that will bring so many more jobs, that is to me the greater good,” he said.

BIGGER PLANS

That group was the state Chamber of Commerce, which last fall, called him about their idea, which had been percolating more or less behind closed doors with county judges and bankers. That process may be necessary to keep people from land speculation but it did not engender much confidence from Gorge enthusiasts and business owners, who worried about all kinds of things, from the environmental degradation of bringing more people to the Gorge to whether a resort would shutter local businesses.

The Red River Economic Development LLC got an option to buy from Teal, which runs out Sept. 30, roughly the time that a firm called Stantec is due to turn in a master plan that is supposed to lay out a way forward for not just a resort, but an entire plan to improve tourism and the economy in the region.

“People get really caught up in the idea of a destination resort but we were also hired to come up with a tourism development strategy, and that’s really become the focus overall,” said John Bucher, a senior planner with Stantec. “A potential resort is one component of that strategy, several other components that are just as or more likely to happen in the near future,” such as Hazard Community College opening a satellite campus in Wolfe County.

The RRED has not yet made a choice if Teal’s land will be the site. The Stantec folks have looked at several larger pieces. But most feel that Teal’s site, with its access to both the Slade exit and city water and sewer, would be hard to beat.

Teal loves his land, comes here often and lets others explore as well. The trail above Adventure Arch winds its way along cliffs that overlook huge swathes of the national forest land that makes up the Gorge. If you’ve ever hiked in the Gorge, it would look familiar and close by; trails on Teal’s land could easily be connected to the Gorge. He knows the entire area well, in part due to volunteering with the local search and rescue crews so often deployed out there.

Adventure Arch is located on property owned by Ian Teal near the Slade exit off the Mountain Parkway, close to the Natural Bridge State Park, in Powell County, Ky. The Red River Economic Development LLC has an option on Teal’s property to develop a “destination resort.” Friday, Aug. 7, 2020 Ryan C. Hermens RHERMENS@HERALD-LEADER.COM

One day, he brought one local man to see what’s known as the Golden Cathedral Arch. “The man had seen it when he was a kid and he just started crying,” Teal said. He understands people’s reverence for the Gorge, that’s how he makes a living after all, but he is genuinely bewildered by the furor over the project. Why you wouldn’t use Powell County’s natural riches to make Powell Countians a little richer?

“It’s fine if people disagree with you, but it’s chilling when people make decisions without all the information,” he said, standing on one clifftop where he hoped to build a simple chapel for weddings. He’s miffed by opponents who read one report that said as many as 1 million people could visit the Gorge, even though a 200-room lodge filled all year couldn’t account for that many people. He’s annoyed that they oppose any development at all, “to have 1,000 acres and dedicate 10 to a lodge, which opens up climbing and biking and hiking AND jobs … well, how can that be bad?”

The answer is not that it’s automatically bad, although there are plenty of people who want wilderness to stay wilderness. But Red River Gorge United, the group that formed shortly after the RRED announcement, still has plenty of qualms. That’s partly because there are no planning and zoning laws around the Gorge. Private developers can pretty much do whatever they want on private land.

“Our position is still that there are ways to do development that can be in line with what the Gorge is currently experiencing, and our concern is that the RRED-Stantec plan seems to be very large, and I think that is against the grain of what is already here,” said Kristen Wiley, chair of RRGU and director of the Kentucky Reptile Zoo in Slade. “I really think that if they did something that was a very eco-friendly, more progressive type of development, they could make plenty of money and it could be a model for future sorts of developments.”

RRED officials have talked a lot about an “upscale” resort, without specifying what that means, and certainly a post-COVID economic landscape leaves plenty of mystery to all kinds of development. Does “upscale” mean like White Sulfur Springs, W.Va., where the hills around the Greenbrier Resort are dotted with vacation mansions? Or does it mean something more affordable that would compete directly with cabins and AirBnB properties around the Gorge? Is 890 acres enough space to provide the spread out hiking and climbing that some visitors want AND a spa or distillery, both of which have been mentioned as possible draws?

Wiley understands Teal’s ideas about jobs and employment, but as she points out, a destination resort will bring only service industry jobs that are low-paying and may or may not have benefits attached. She hopes the Stantec report will focus on the kind of regional economic development that would bring better-paying jobs.

“Everyone I know is struggling to find cashiers and cabin cleaners,” she said. “That type of job, does not have a high unemployment rate. What Powell County does need is more ways to build familial wealth.”

Both Bucher and Wiley point to towns like Beattyville and Frenchburg as possible attractions that would get potential guests from a resort out into the region to spend some money.

Stantec is holding its third virtual town hall meeting on August 18 at 7:00 p.m. hoping for more local input.

INEVITABLE DEVELOPMENT

The option to buy Teal’s land will run out on Sept. 30. The RRED might extend the option, they might pick another site, or by that time, they might have found a developer to pay a possible market price of between $3 and $4 million. Or the whole thing falls through.

Ian Teal stands on an overlook on property he owns near the Slade exit off the Mountain Parkway, close to the Natural Bridge State Park, in Powell County, Ky., on Friday, Aug. 7, 2020. The Red River Economic Development LLC has an option on Teal’s property to develop a “destination resort.” Ryan C. Hermens RHERMENS@HERALD-LEADER.COM

But whatever happens, whether he sells the land or keeps it, the land will be developed. In his mind, why would he stop at a project where he can do good by doing well? If he develops it, it will be smaller than a “destination resort,” but full of special touches he’s thought about for years, like a giant U.S. flag on Bee Rock, near the highway, the big lake in the middle or maybe some retail near the entrance.

Part of his zeal is philosophical. As we hiked, Teal said that he’s a fan of the U.S. Forest Service workers in the Gorge, who oversee so much of it, but not particularly of the federal government, which in his mind, moves too slowly and inefficiently, whether building new bridges or helping with COVID relief.

“This land will be privately owned, it will be taken care of,” he said. “It will pull people away from the Gorge, it will relieve some of that pressure. It will provide jobs so people aren’t dependent on government. Why wouldn’t we want to do that?”