A plan to build 20 timeshare units at the Aspen Club and Spa received a preliminary approval from the city’s Planning and Zoning Commission this week.
The 4-1 vote, which came at the end of the fifth two-hour session before the P&Z in recent months, laid blessing to the project’s design and massing. Lingering concerns about traffic and open space will be addressed when the plan goes before City Council.
“The project is moving in the right direction,” Jessica Garrow, long-range planner with the Community Development Department, said Wednesday. “It’s not all the way there, but (remaining issues) can be addressed through the final review.”
The ownership of the Aspen Club and Spa, represented by Michael Fox, a co-owner who manages the day-to-day operations of the club, seeks to build 53,900 square feet of timeshare lodging units, divided into 20 three- and four-bedroom units, a 34,630-square-foot expansion to the club athletic facilities, and 12,330 square feet of affordable housing divided into 12 two-bedroom units. The plan also includes a 53-space underground parking garage and 45 surface parking spaces.
The 20 timeshares, which would be allocated into one-sixteenth interests, would be sold as a health and wellness retreat under a concept being called Aspen Club Living. When the timeshare members aren’t there, and in the shoulder seasons, the units would be made available to the general public. The sale of the timeshare units would finance millions of dollars of improvements to the club’s facilities, many of which betray their 1970s origins.
In the coming months, the project will go before City Council, which will give a conceptual review to the overall development plan. If it passes the council’s conceptual review, it will go back to P&Z, and then again to City Council for final review.
The original design considered by the P&Z included 19 timeshare units, but 3,000 more total square feet of timeshares. City planning staff and P&Z did not approve of the layout of buildings on the site, which put two buildings with four and seven units along the “lower bench” of the site, where the outdoor tennis courts sit. The design did not address sufficiently the river and bike path, which are directly below the “lower bench” and created a wall of building between the main club building and riparian area, city planning staff said.
The design has since been reworked, removing a unit from the lower bench and dividing the two buildings into three smaller buildings with more open space between. All of the units were made smaller, but planners added a unit onto the upper portion of the site, bringing the total up to 20 units while reducing the total square footage by 3,000 square feet.
“I commend you for the changes you have made,” Commissioner Stan Gibbs said. “They make the project much better.”
Gibbs noted that he still has questions related to how the club will reduce the amount of traffic the new lodging would generate, but he can support the project conceptually.
The Aspen Club is proposing measures such as increasing shuttle service and implementing a car share program that it said would eliminate the additional traffic the timeshare development would create on Ute Avenue.
The club is are seeking a specially planned area — or SPA — designation, which applies to projects with unique site constraints in which the public interest would be served if underlying zoning regulations were scrapped.
About 15 community members and club employees came to the meeting to support the proposed project. Allowing the club to expand its programming and improve its facilities would be a benefit to the entire valley, supporters said.
The timeshare units will add to Aspen’s shrunken pool of short-term rental units and will bring “high quality” customers for Aspen’s business community, said Warren Klug, general manager of the Aspen Square condo hotel. He added that an amenity like the Aspen Club is crucial to the satisfaction of Aspen’s visitors.
“The club has a huge value to our economy,” Klug said.
But Richard Nieley, an attorney working for neighbors opposed to the project, cautioned that all the good things the club does today should not be argued as a basis for approving the new development. Everything could change overnight should the club, with its new timeshare units, be sold.
“The only guarantee is that you will get 20 new free market units,” Neiley said. “You have to separate the good things they do now from what could happen in the future.”
Commissioner Michael Wampler said he has no qualms with the massing and density on the site, and that the traffic issue could be dealt with.
But he noted that he is still struggling with questions about the development’s public benefits and whether the east end of Ute Avenue is an appropriate area for lodging. He also said he would like to see a condition of approval requiring a deed restriction ensuring that the club continues indefinitely as an athletic club.
In voting no, Commissioner LJ Erspamer said he would like to see fewer timeshare units on the site. By adding one unit from the original total, the project will introduce more people, traffic and impacts to the site, Erspamer said.
curtis@aspendailynews.com