REAL ESTATE IN THE NEWS
REAL ESTATE IN THE NEWS
Current Events in the Roaring Fork Valley of Particular Interest to the Real Estate Community
Compliments of the Aspen Board of REALTORS® A rundown of government and business activity over the last month, focusing on issues and items that are of particular interest to the Real Estate community.
ASPEN
Aspen Medical Care Absorbed by Aspen Valley Health
Long-time uppervalley primary care provider Aspen Medical Care will integrate with Aspen Valley Health in May, the Aspen Daily News reported. The move marks the end of AMC, founded in 1997, as one of the upper Roaring Fork Valley’s signature healthcare providers, while expanding AVH’s growing primary care practice. Representatives from both organizations say the move will broaden and streamline the services available to patients.
AMC patients can still receive care, including walk-ins, at AMC’s downtown Aspen location in Obermeyer Place, though the facility will technically be part of AVH after May 4. Primary care will also be available at the AVH Medical Center in Aspen on Castle Creek Road. AMC’s downtown Basalt location will close on Apr 30, and mid-valley patients can begin receiving care at AVH’s location on East Valley Road near Willits.
Community Land Trust Created
The city of Aspen will take a new approach to preserving local businesses in town through a community land trust meant to keep commercial properties affordable, the Aspen Daily News reported. The city is in the process of receiving approval from the Internal Revenue Service to declare the Aspen Area Community Trust as a nonprofit organization. It was a project that started in 2023 as a way to tackle affordable housing in Aspen in a new way, but evolved into an initiative in which the main goal is to protect and preserve locally serving businesses.
A community land trust, or CLT, is a nonprofit that acquires and holds land for stewardship purposes. Across the country, communities have established CLTs to address affordable housing concerns, acquiring residential property to maintain affordability for those tenants. They are formed as nonprofits that purchase land or take land donations, establish ground leases and sell the properties at a restricted price. The city received a $135,000 grant from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs in 2023 to explore the potential of establishing a CLT for affordable housing purposes. Its creation could be a potential model for other communities if successful as affordability becomes a national issue.
Sales Up 10% in Aspen
Taxable sales in Aspen in 2025 totaled $1.44 billion—10% higher than the $1.30 billion recorded in 2024, the Aspen Daily News reported. Last year’s sales were included in the city of Aspen’s monthly report, representing December 2025 retail transactions and other types of sales.
Sales tax sectors that recorded big gains in 2025 included accommodations, construction, fashion clothing and restaurants-bars. Accommodations grew 10%, from $354.81 million in 2024 to $391.15 million in 2025; construction jumped 127%, from $74.46 million to $169.06 million; fashion clothing increased 11%, from $171.19 million to $189.49 million; and restaurants-bars rose 5%, from $209.24 million to $220.01 million.
520 Grill Selected for City Space
The Aspen City Council unanimously selected 520 Grill to take over the subsidized restaurant space at 455 Rio Grande Place, the Aspen Daily News reported. The grill was selected from a pool of 12 applicants. The city council whittled the applicants down to four finalists, each of whom presented their affordable restaurant concepts to council. The council selected 520 Grill over Bamboo Bear and Jaffa Kitchen because it is an existing restaurant in downtown Aspen with a proven concept and staff members already employed. 520 Grill owner Troy Selby opened the restaurant at 520 E. Cooper Ave. in 2010, and rebranded it to Silverpeak Grill in 2020. It plans to open in May.
Snowmass Village
Ritz-Carlton Proposal Coming to Snowmass Village
Elevated Returns submitted a land use application to the town of Snowmass Village to redevelop the Viewline Resort Snowmass, Wildwood Snowmass Lodge and the Snowmass Conference Center into a Ritz-Carlton property, the Aspen Daily News reported. The Aspen-Snowmass-based hospitality investment and management firm submitted the plan for a pre-sketch application in January, nearly a year after Elevated Snowmass LLC acquired the complex for $143,997,116.
The proposed project would consolidate the three separate properties into one. It proposes six buildings with an updated hotel, fractional units, workforce housing and opportunities for a mix of commercial spaces. The Ritz-Carlton, under Marriott, will be the future operator. It would include 150 guest rooms, 62 fractional units, 80 workforce housing units and 180 parking spaces, largely underground. The existing property has 407 guest rooms between both the Viewline and Wildwood, eight workforce housing units and 25 parking spaces.
Jazz Aspen Snowmass Lineup Announced
Headliners Benson Boone, Tim McGraw and Bonnie Raitt were announced for the Jazz Aspen Snowmass Experience over Labor Day weekend this summer, the organization announced. Best New Artist nominee Boone will play after Trombone Shorty & Orleans Avenue on Friday, Sept. 4. On Saturday, Sept. 5, country music star Tim McGraw will perform with Shaboozey and Anna Avery earlier in the day, and on Sunday Bonnie Raitt will perform after The Red Clay Strays. Three-day GA passes are on sale for $349.
Basalt
Aspen One Planning for More Midvalley Housing
Aspen One submitted an application for a 111-unit affordable housing development near El Jebel, the Aspen Daily News reported. The company already owns or manages 1,300 beds in the Roaring Fork Valley, and the proposal features one- to four-bedroom units, plus a community building and a maintenance facility on what’s currently an open field in El Jebel. It’s located between Highway 82 and JW Drive.
All of the units would be rentals managed by Aspen One. Tenants would be a range of year-round workers who make between 80% and 250% of the area median income. Fourteen of the apartments could be deed-restricted affordable housing units, price-capped in alignment with Eagle County housing guidelines. The rest would not have a deed restriction. The application identifies one unit for a property manager; for the remaining 96, Aspen One employees could get first dibs, followed by essential workers and community workforce.
Carbondale
Trustee Continue to Weigh ADU Policy
Carbondale Town Trustees are considering policy updates to make it easier to build accessory dwelling units (ADUs) within town limits as a way to increase housing stock, the Sopris Sun reported. Some of those considerations include allowing homeowners the flexibility to use an ADU as they choose, which means permission of short-term rentals (when accepted through the STR program). They are also weighing minimum parking requirements, impervious coverage on the lot, and easing the permit process so that ADUs within an existing structure only require a building permit where new structures will need a site plan review.
Glenwood Springs
GarCo Planning Commission Rejects Harvest Village
The Garfield County Planning Commission voted 6-1 to deny a recommendation to approve the proposed 1,500-unit Harvest Village development between Glenwood Springs and Carbondale, the Aspen Daily News reported. The application from Texas-based developer Realty Capital seeks to transform the 283-acre property along Highway 82 into a town until itself, with between 3,000 to 5,000 people occupying nine neighborhoods, 55,000 square feet of mixed use commercial space and a 120-room hotel.
Despite the commission’s recommendation for denial to the GarCo Board of County Commissioners, the majority of planning commissioners stressed the county’s need to add housing stock and encouraged the developers to address outstanding issues and come back to the table with an amended application.
Glenwood Caverns Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park’s owner filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March, less than five months after a Garfield County jury awarded $250 million to the parents of a child who died in 2021 after falling from one of the park’s rides. Under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a corporation may reorganize its structure through a process that allows it to keep operating as it establishes a way to pay creditors over time. The filing by Glenwood Caverns Holdings LLC was entered in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware.
Pitkin County
North Star Nature Preserve Plan Gets Update
Pitkin County Open Space and Trails, which manages North Star Nature Preserve and the adjacent James H. Smith open spaces under one plan, published its master plan for the next five years after significant public feedback in crafting it, Aspen Journalism reported. The riparian system that flows into town from Independence has seen increased recreational activity and neighbors and officials would like to see continued mitigation of those effects, according to the report.
The plan lays out 39 indicators that are meant to guide Open Space and Trails in ensuring that management is on track to meet the desired conditions. Topping the indicators are peak-use days—reaching more than 370 users per day—which only historically has happened around July 4. To ease impacts on these days, policies including increased ranger presence, drop-off only at Wildwood put-in, and limiting commercial operations might be activated. The report also indicates that wildlife health has improved, with an increased presence of beavers.
Public Gets a Peek at Aspen Highlands’ Future
The 2025 Aspen Highlands Master Development Plan was made public in March and includes projects that SkiCo officials might want to pursue in the next decade or so: a 10-person Maroon Bells Gondola, replacing the Exhibition lift with a stop at the Merry-Go-Round and continuing to the top of Cloud Nine. (The Cloud Nine lift would stay in place.); extended snowmaking, expanding both on-mountain restaurants (nearly tripling the size of Cloud 9); and launching summer operations to make Highlands a warm-weather destination. The plan is a more of a long-term vision and needs to go through several rounds of project reviews for individual projects.
Ted Mahon Appointed Interim County Commissioner
Ted Mahon was appointed Pitkin County Commissioner, the Aspen Daily News reported. He was named after a pool of nine contenders all earned kudos from the BOCC for their interviews and qualifications. The seat, vacated when Kelly McNicholas Kury resigned in March, is filled through a decision by four remaining commissioners so someone could finish the last 10 months of the current term. Mahon was the top choice, with Emiky Kolbe a close second, for commissioners Greg Poschman and Francie Jacober. Mahon announced he will run for the seat this fall as well.