The Aspen Club and Spa timeshare expansion project is back before City Council tonight for what has the potential to be a definitive meeting.
With countless meetings already on the record, and six in the last few months of final approval hearings, the club has come back with redesign options that attempt to address a concern that the city’s planning staff has had with the project since it was resubmitted almost three years ago.
The owners of the Aspen Club — an LLC with multiple silent partners headed by Michael Fox, who is the club’s day-to-day manager — are seeking to build 20 timeshare condos, mostly on what is now the club’s tennis courts, 12 affordable housing units and a 50-space underground parking garage. The new development would add around 100,000 square feet to the club’s existing 85,000 square feet. The sale of the timeshares would finance a renovation of the athletic facilities and the club is pitching the project as a wellness-themed lodging property.
The original layout of the condos had two larger buildings with four units each on the “lower bench” of the club’s site, with a smaller, two-unit building in between. But city planning staff has been critical of this design, saying the two-unit building interrupts what should be an open view corridor to the Roaring Fork River.
Although the club project has received conceptual approval and a positive recommendation from the Planning and Zoning Commission, city planners’ issue with the layout of the site has not been addressed until now. Previous council hearings for final approval have been more concerned with whether the community benefits promised will come to fruition.
At one point, council members Mick Ireland and Steve Skadron, who have been most critical of the project, said that mass and scale issues were a secondary concern to the community benefits. They reiterated at the last meeting, however, that the project’s size and mass was still an issue.
The club is now proposing three options that eliminate the two-unit building on the lower bench. All three relocate the condos to other potions of the site — either to the main club building or into the two larger buildings on the lower bench.
“The issue staff had wasn’t with density,” Fox said. “It was really with the visual impact of mass on the site. I think we have finally gotten to a solution that works for everybody.”
Fox said he is not anticipating council members will ask him to reduce the size of the proposed development.
“At this stage of the game, I hope not,” he said.
City staff is also recommending that the club extend to 10 years the length of time it will have to monitor traffic coming and going from the site on Ute Avenue. Previously it was going to be five years. The club is committing to keep traffic at or blow current levels. If it does not, it will have to fund the city’s cross-town shuttle service for six months and institute paid parking at the club for guests and members.
Tonight’s meeting begins at 5 p.m. Since councilman Torre is a tennis instructor at the club, he is recused from voting. That leaves behind four council members. A 2-2 vote is equivalent to a denial.
Fox is hoping this is the final meeting. Staff has indicated that council is ready to call the question, he said.
“For my own mental well-being, I hope it is (the last meeting),” Fox said.
curtis@aspendailynews.com
