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SILVERTON – Shane Fuhrman’s social media presence would stoke the coals of envy in any skier who longs for snowy bliss.
His Instagram page features high-resolution footage of Fuhrman, the former mayor of Silverton, with a wide, beguiling smile painted across his face as he tucks his knees and slashes through blower powder, leaving a curtain of snow behind him.
The content strikes at the core of what draws people to Silverton – the nostalgically antiquated town ensconced within craggy, snow-laden peaks. Silverton was once the nucleus of a mining frenzy in the San Juan Mountains. Today, the area is a sort of holy grail for winter outdoor enthusiasts.
What many of Silverton’s 700 residents would learn is that the chic, modernly sensible image the mayor presented of himself online – the picture of him, arms akimbo sporting a boyish grin next to a heading calling himself “Silverton’s new generation of leadership” – was not all that it seemed at first blush.
Although a slim majority of Silverton voters would come out in support of Fuhrman when he ran for office in 2020, not everyone bought the idea that he was just a causeless outsider who had arrived and fallen in love with Silverton’s seemingly endless supply of white gold.
Unbeknownst to most residents at the time, the future mayor in 2016 had written a prospectus soliciting investments titled “The Selwyn.” In it, Fuhrman proposed to transform this quaint mining town into a burgeoning vacation destination, replete with craft cocktail bars, natural food markets and home goods stores as part of an effort to boost desirability, and with it the price of real estate.
Silverton was “strikingly similar to Telluride 20 years ago,” Fuhrman wrote in the prospectus. He saw it as his “mission” to push Silverton 20 years forward. Three years after writing that, he was elected mayor.
Today, he dismisses the document. In emails to the The Durango Herald Fuhrman called it “highly broad,” and said it was a prospectus he “created but never pursued.”
About this story
This story is the first in a two-part series about Silverton and how the town pursued strategic, affordable growth as then-Mayor Shane Fuhrman pursued capital investment to fund development.
Over the course of eight months, The Durango Herald reviewed dozens of public meetings, financial filings with the state and federal governments, real estate transactions, emails and other documents. The Herald also interviewed approximately 25 people with knowledge of Silverton, the operations of town government during Fuhrman’s tenure and Fuhrman’s business interests.
Part two will appear Wednesday.
During his four-year term, the developer raised $1.9 million for projects in Silverton and used the money to purchase developable land and buildings along the town’s main drag. To some, it appeared Fuhrman had found a springboard from which he could launch his development dreams.
“I can’t say straight out that’s why he done it, but the assumption out there by, I want to say 90% of people or better, is that’s what happened,” said Gilbert Archuleta, the volunteer fire chief and former town public works director who ran against Fuhrman for mayor in 2020.
Fuhrman declined to speak with a reporter for this story but answered some questions by email.
He wrote in an email to the Herald that land and buildings he purchased before and during his term were not connected to the Selwyn investment proposal. Rather, he said, they were “independent real estate investments aligned with my commitment to thoughtful investment and development.”
In the late 19th century, prospectors discovered and mined tons of copper, gold, silver, lead and zinc-bearing ore from the San Juans; just over a century later, Fuhrman saw unmined potential of another kind.
The Colorado-born lawyer had gone to school in New York and practiced law at a Park Avenue firm before he moved to Silverton. And that didn’t sit well with his opponents.
“They try to make him out to be ... a city boy, you know? That was one of the attacks against him too,” said Klem Branner, owner of Silverton-based Venture Snowboards and a friend of the former mayor. “... They just came up with all these B.S. stories to try to smear him.”
Silverton was, by most accounts, in a moment of reckoning around how to grow without pricing out the lower-wage workers who bus tables, tend bar and otherwise keep the tourism economy humming along. It was a moment most Colorado mountain towns had already experienced.
“It’s a community that’s very vulnerable to investors,” Archuleta said.
For years, the town had seen little development.
“I didn’t feel like it was on the precipice of anything except for what it was,” said Jared Boyd.
Boyd was a Silverton resident in the early 2000s who left and returned in 2013. He moved for good in 2020 as he watched the unfolding of development that appeared unpalatable.
Few Silvertonians wanted to stop time.
In 2020, the town kicked off the Compass Project master planning process. The initiative, spearheaded by the mayor, would establish a common vision for Silverton’s growth over the next 10 years. The process yielded impressive buy-in from the town’s residents. The final product recognized the need for, among other things, responsible development.
“Most of the community is not overtly opposed to intentional community minded development,” the document, completed in 2022, says. “Most people recognize that Silverton will continue to grow and change; it’s not a question of if, but how.”
As the Compass Project was being discussed and written, Fuhrman was pursuing investments and development that appeared to align with the vision laid out in the Selwyn, according to interviews with community members and records of Fuhrman’s business dealings. He had envisioned a future in which the high per-square-foot price of real estate was seen as good for profits, rather than bad for affordability.
The Compass Project is a “true reflection of the majority opinion” on what the town wanted to be when it grew up, said DeAnne Gallegos, executive director of the Silverton Chamber of Commerce.
If the Compass Project contained the community’s consensus on Silverton’s future, Telluride was an actualized example of what many in the town hoped to avoid. It was also the one Fuhrman had planned to emulate, according to the 2016 Selwyn prospectus with which he had hoped to solicit $15 million in capital to kick-start the transition.
“Silverton, Colorado, bears a striking resemblance to Telluride, Colorado, 20 years ago, and is on the cusp of significant growth as a community and adventure vacation destination,” he wrote in the Selwyn. “We will purchase, renovate/develop, and manage key commercial, mixed use, and residential properties in a concentrated area of downtown Silverton, Colorado.”
The town, it seemed, had unmined potential. And that potential looked to Fuhrman, at least at one time, a lot like Telluride.
Telluride and Silverton are a tale of two towns.
Both were settled by miners in the 19th century when a lust for precious metals drove development throughout the San Juans. The towns sit just 10 miles apart as the crow flies, separated by a mountain pass that tops out near 13,000 feet.
As mines shuttered throughout the mid-1960s and ’70s, developers steeped Telluride in big money, setting it on a course to become a pricey winter haven for the uber-wealthy.
Soon, the Telluride workforce had been largely priced out of the canyon.
A 2018 housing needs assessment conducted in San Miguel County made clear that most of Telluride’s business owners struggled to hire staff because of the lack of attainable housing and long commutes between the town and more affordable nearby communities.
Silverton, by contrast, never saw a post-mining resurgence quite like its neighbor over the pass. The town’s population faltered, from a high of over 3,000 around 1905, to its current population of around 700.
In the summer, a rustic train once used to haul gold and silver ore now dumps thousands of tourists in the heart of the town daily. In the winter, the economy falls dormant, save for a cadre of loyal patrons who flock to the appropriately amenity-sparse Silverton Mountain.
Fuhrman saw real estate in mountain towns, Telluride chief among them, soar in value as visitors with deep pockets sought, and found there, the nexus of rugged antiquity and plush modernity.
Silverton had the rugged antiquity – the train and the 19th century brothels where tourists can get a drink ensconce visitors in the town’s storied past.
Unlike Telluride, the town had none of the plush modernity. It was, as Fuhrman put it to would-be investors, “unfortunately bereft of the businesses and amenities one would expect.”
In 2016, Fuhrman began to confidentially circulate “The Selwyn” to “sophisticated,” high net-worth individuals. The prospectus contained a plan to solicit investments and “push Silverton past its tipping point as an attractive community for investment, relocation and tourism,” and in doing so, reap the financial benefits of Silverton’s growth.
“There are no farm-to-table restaurants, cocktail bars, natural food markets, home goods stores, or other lifestyle businesses, and limited modern accommodations,” the Selwyn said.
The 23-page prospectus outlined the state’s growing retail sales, decreasing housing inventory and Silverton’s undervalued real estate. The plush amenities he described in the Selwyn were the piece that was “quite obviously missing.”
Fuhrman’s plan to transform Silverton from a place visited “for the mountains despite the town,” into another peak-girded “attractive vacation destination and home for new residents” wasn’t necessarily welcome news in the town. Not all Silvertonians were thrilled at the idea of big changes to accommodate new visitors – and certainly not at the cost of the affordability of their own town.
“Anybody could look at the document and say ‘this person, whoever it is that drafted this, is looking to make money – and that’s it – off of this town,’” said Ian Tanner, a ceramist, former sheriff’s deputy and self-described agitator in Silverton who would become a vocal opponent of the mayor.
If Silverton was 20 years behind Telluride, the Selwyn was “basically fast-tracking” that timeline, Boyd said.
The plan was broken down into three phases.
First, Fuhrman proposed buying up both vacant land as well as commercial properties on Greene and Blair streets, the two main thoroughfares through town. He and his investors would “establish core businesses in town to be directly managed or outsourced,” and “beautify (the) localized area surrounding businesses with trees, lights, streets signs and common spaces.”
After Selwyn investors had amenitized Greene and Blair streets, Phase Two would begin. Fuhrman outlined how the value of Silverton’s real estate would rise exponentially and investors would develop the now-significantly appreciated vacant land.
Page five of the prospectus contained two charts: one compared the average per square foot price of real estate in Silverton at the time, $151, with property in Telluride, which ranged from $870 for commercial to $1,050 for residential; the other chart demonstrated the flywheel effect – as investment increased and key businesses opened along the Y-axis, the real estate value on the X-axis would rise exponentially.
A third, less defined phase, focused on additional development, agriculture and energy production.
Although the document circulated in town before Fuhrman’s election and in advance of a 2021 recall attempt, Fuhrman waffled between enforcing the disclaimer that deemed the document “confidential,” and pledging transparency around it.
During the 2020 election, Fuhrman tried to stop a Silverton resident from publicizing the document. More recently, he threatened legal action against the Herald for the same reason, citing a disclaimer in the document that claimed it was confidential.
In an August 2021 email to his town hall colleagues, obtained by the Herald through an open records request, Fuhrman wrote, “I now view anything in the plans as public knowledge.”
However the extent to which any of Fuhrman’s plans were known and taken seriously by Silverton’s electorate in 2020, about three years after it was written, is a lingering question.
Branner, the owner of Venture Snowboards, said he likely first saw the plan preceding the 2021 recall vote.
“Nobody, including me, wants this place to turn into something even remotely like Telluride,” he said.
But he dismissed Fuhrman’s prospectus, which outlined in explicit terms how to turn Silverton into something like Telluride.
“This town is full of plans that collect dust,” Branner said.
Tanner saw it differently.
“He would’ve been run out of town on the first day if he had been open about it,” he said.
In an email to the Herald, Fuhrman said he never acted on the document and said the 8-year-old plan “has no relevance to my work today.” However, he acknowledged in a 2021 email to town staff members that “although the message in the business plan could have been more gently stated, it remains accurate.”
By the end of his term, bulldozers were flattening earth on over 50 lots, each 5,000 square feet and priced at $360,000, which one of Fuhrman’s companies had purchased in 2021, rezoned and listed for sale. He had also acquired a three-story apartment building in downtown the same year and bought a vacant building abutting a hotel he had purchased in 2016 (he filed a permit application to renovate the building as an expansion of the hotel a month after he left office).
To sell this pitch, Fuhrman took a pen to a map of Silverton and began to highlight properties, detailed in the later pages of the Selwyn, that the enterprise might purchase (a disclaimer noted that the properties were representative and subject to change).
Some of those properties were to be purchased during Phase One, the amenitization of Silverton. Others, empty or sparsely populated lots, would be developed during Phase Two of the prospectus, once the boom in amenities had increased the desirability of real estate.
To some, it appeared that Fuhrman’s opening salvo came around the time he circulated the Selwyn to investors, in late 2016, when he purchased and began renovations on the Wyman Hotel. Of the Phase One properties labeled A through G, The Wyman was property “C.”
In the Selwyn, Fuhrman also expressed interest in a 2.4-acre vacant lot in the heart of Silverton – a rarity – which was owned by the school district. The property had been listed for sale and purchased by the district for $550,000 in February 2017.
Despite having no children, Fuhrman successfully ran for a seat on the school board in August 2017.
To outside observers in Silverton who had not yet seen the Selwyn, his intentions were unclear.
One school board member hypothesized that maybe Fuhrman had just wanted to be involved in the community, as it didn’t seem that he was trying to acquire the property. Some residents began to question his motives after seeing the Selwyn, the board member said.
At a candidates forum in 2020, Fuhrman touted his work with the school district developing the site for potential use as a recreation center or for employee housing.
“It seemed awfully calculated,” said Molly Barela, a former town trustee who served during Fuhrman’s term and frequently butted heads with the mayor.
Fuhrman never purchased the property and said that any suggestion he competed with the district for the property was a “false rumor.”
Nor did he buy six of the seven commercial properties circled in the prospectus.
Had he, in fact, abandoned the Selwyn vision, as he now contends?
Whether Fuhrman accomplished what he set out to do – or whether the vision in the Selwyn remained his mission – depends on who you ask.
“I don’t think he expected as much pushback as he got,” Tanner said.
Some of the amenitization – a natural food store, farm-to-table restaurant and lights in the streets – never came to fruition. Still, Fuhrman made other key acquisitions while in office.
After he bought the Wyman in 2016, his second Silverton acquisition came in March 2021, a year into his mayoral term.
Highlander Investco, of which Fuhrman was the executive officer, sold $595,000 in shares on March 23, 2021, according to SEC filings. Eight days later, Highlander Property Co LLC, a company of which Fuhrman is the registered agent, bought the Highlander Building for $1.3 million. The Highlander is one of few multiunit apartment buildings on Greene Street. He has listed the property on the market again, initially with an asking price of $3.26 million (the price has since dropped to $2.85 million).
Five months after that, another of Fuhrman’s companies, Sultan Development LP, LLC, registered the Sept. 3 sale of $1.2 million in equity with the SEC. Four days earlier, Sultan Development LLC, also registered to Fuhrman, had purchased over six acres of vacant land at the south end of town for $1.8 million. Individual pairs of lots – over 50 in total – are now on the market for $360,000 each.
In July 2023, just over three years into his term, Fuhrman bought the building adjacent to the Wyman for $500,000. He collected $150,000 in investments the previous month, SEC records show.
All told, Fuhrman’s various enterprises raised only about $3.8 million for projects in Silverton, including $1.9 million raised during his term as mayor. The sum fell short of the $5.5 million price tag for Phase One estimated in the Selwyn. But he did, during his term, raise an additional $3.2 million of investors’ funds and buy two hotels in Durango, where Fuhrman also owns a home.
Even if the full or precise vision of the Selwyn was never realized, Fuhrman’s actions didn’t sit well with some residents of the town.
“After seeing the Selwyn prospectus, every decision and everything Shane has done makes sense,” said Gigi Raine, an early supporter of Fuhrman’s who would later turn into a vocal opponent. “You know, Shane became mayor for Shane.”
Fuhrman pushes back on this.
“It is disheartening to see how those who dedicate themselves to public service, often at great personal and professional sacrifice, are increasingly subjected to unfounded criticism and vilification,” he wrote in an email to the Herald. “Public service is not about personal gain – it is about contributing to the betterment of the community, fostering collaboration, and building a future that benefits everyone.”
Silverton was at the time contending with a serious question: Would necessary change inevitably squeeze out a constituency of old-timers and ski bums who once belonged there?
“Shane is that younger group … they wanted to make it like Telluride down here,” said Kelli Fries, the former town clerk. “We don’t want Telluride. All of us older ones want to just leave it as is.”
But the “leave it as is” contingency didn’t exactly have the strongest platform either – families moving to Silverton wanted to see the town secure essential services such as a doctor, a pharmacy or a full-size grocery store.
It was the goal of the Compass Project to resolve the tension among the multiple constituencies.
The 18-month series of discussions, led by Community Builders Executive Director Clark Anderson, ultimately produced the 2022 master plan. Anderson’s goal was to extract a shared vision for growth where everyone had a stake in Silverton’s future.
But as Fuhrman had written in the Selwyn, his goal was to develop a “very attractive vacation destination and home for new residents.”
And what irked some Silvertonians the most was not that someone was trying to develop their town; it was that they felt misled.
“To pretend to be a community member; to pretend to care, to be on these boards, do all these things, and then, just by the sheer obvious aspect of what was purchased and developed … it just seems nefarious to me,” Tanner, the agitator, said, incredulous.
Fuhrman, in response, said Tanner “exhibited aggressive behavior throughout my term and beyond.”
According to documents reviewed by Herald and officials familiar with the town’s business, Fuhrman used his government email address to have the Selwyn removed from a public website; he used the state’s open records laws to see if and how his town hall colleagues were discussing his private business plans; and as Silverton’s leaders look for affordable land the town could purchase, Fuhrman managed to buy property first.
“If you’re going to be an investor, I get that,” Tanner said. “But if you’re going to be an investor and then take over in politics – try to run the show as mayor and be an investor/developer – I think there is reason, at least, for concern when a leading politician is one of the main developers in a small community.”
rschafir@durangoherald.com
