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Aspen Highlands Village has been around for nearly eight years now, and while shops have come and gone, galleries have changed hands and restaurants have opened and closed, one thing has remained the same: Getting people to make the two-mile trek northwest has always been the tiny village’s greatest challenge.

Often times even in winter — with the massive draw of Aspen Highlands Mountain and the accompanying Highland Bowl — prodding people to do anything other than ski has proved difficult for the dozen or so merchants located at the base of the hill. But now, after village ownership changed hands last December and commercial renters ditched marketing firm The Darnauer Group a year and a half ago — the businesses at the bottom of the mountain are trying to take things into their own hands.

“Marketing has always been a challenge, and the formula has yet to be found,” says Graham Frandson, co-owner of ZG Grill and Crust, two of the three restaurants located at Aspen Highlands.

Both businesses of Frandson’s were seized in early May by the Colorado Department of Revenue for nonpayment of taxes, a problem Frandson attributed to a miscommunication between his bill-paying department and the CDR. The debt has since been cleared.

“We’ve had moderate success with movie nights and free beer nights in the past. And even though buses depart for the Maroon Bells from here, it’s just not enough to support three restaurants, or even two.”

So Frandson has decided to streamline his business by simplifying the menus and offering more to-go items for bikers, hikers and Maroon Bells bus riders. While Frandson says he augments normal restaurant business with private parties — especially at ZG Grill, with its several thousand square feet of outdoor space — he believes Highlands needs to focus on special events, such as the recently nixed antique auto show and the Festival of Colors, if it’s ever to truly drive up traffic.

“Special events are what’s going to get people up here,” he says. “It works in Snowmass for their concerts, festivals and movies, and I definitely think we can make it work here, but on a smaller scale. We don’t have the attractions and proximity to town as some other places in Aspen, and so we need these types of events to be a successful, vibrant village.”

Several galleries in Aspen Highlands have teamed up with restaurants, cafes and even the Ritz-Carlton in an effort to gather crowds. And the results, so far, have been fairly positive.

“We’ve teamed up with Willow Creek Bistro and Café Sienna, and we’ve had nights where all the galleries are open and serving wine with live classical music,” says LivAspenArt owner Olivia Daane. “I’m personally doing a jewelry trunk show with the Ritz, and it’s sponsored by Aspen Sojourner and Pravda Vodka. So we’re constantly doing stuff to get people up here.”

And over at Harvey/Meadows Gallery — where co-owners Alleghany Meadows and Sam Harvey utilize personal mailings; their Airstream trailer gallery is on display at the Saturday farmer’s market in Aspen; and, most recently, they shifted their opening receptions to the middle of the week to avoid event competition — crowds are picking up, even if they’re still absent from the village mall area.

“I’m standing out here looking now, and there aren’t five people on the mall,” he says. “But when we had our opening on June 6, we had at least a hundred people in the gallery.”

Jordan Sarick, president of Eastwood Developments, which now manages Aspen Highlands Village, applauds the efforts of the merchants but adds, “They might not be able to change history.”

“My sense, and this is as an outsider since I haven’t been around very long, is that the special events were supposed to prime the pump, so to speak. And obviously this really hasn’t happened. Traditional retailers haven’t made it here, and I’m not sure if they will.”

Sarick wouldn’t specifically define what he meant by traditional retailers, but added that professional offices, such as those of doctors or lawyers, or businesses like Aspen Expeditions, which recently agreed to lease some space, would perhaps be a better fit because they don’t rely on heavy foot traffic. And, he noted, the sheer number of skiers who head to Highlands in the winter aren’t necessarily good for business.

“You can make the case that for the right client, summer is better than winter,” he says. “For one there is no parking in the winter, and the skiers are normally there to ski, not shop. And even when we tried to do a winter artisan’s market, I believe the Aspen Daily News headline was something like, “’Farmer’s market dead on the vine.’”

damien@aspendailynews.com