Aspen invests in workforce housing downvalley

With 62% of the workforce commuting in and out of Pitkin County every day, Aspen has been investing in downvalley housing options.

The city announced in its Feb. 1 newsletter that it purchased a “unit priority” in Habitat for Humanity’s L3 Conversion Project — an 88-unit complex at 253 Wulfsohn Road in Glenwood Springs — reserving one unit for a member of Aspen’s workforce to purchase and occupy in perpetuity. The priority provides a path to “stable, deed-restricted homeownership,” the newsletter states, allowing the interested individual to “jump to the front of the line to purchase the unit.”

“Housing continues to be really a big issue. Not just in the valley, but everywhere. And we’ve found that a lot of people … do commute from downvalley and are willing to commute from downvalley,” Aspen City Council Member John Doyle said. “This is an opportunity to provide housing for people who are willing to commute to work in Aspen.”

The units are deed-restricted, affordably priced, and located close to food and transit, according to the newsletter.

“I think it shows a certain desire to work regionally,” Aspen Mayor Rachael Richards said of the purchase. “Similar to our investment in the mobile home park.”

Aspen invested $3.2 million to help residents of the Aspen Basalt and Mountain Valley Mobile Home Parks purchase the parks after the owner listed them for sale on the free market for $42 million in March 2025, The Aspen Times previously reported.

Colorado law requires owners of mobile home parks to give residents an opportunity to buy the park for themselves and must consider it in good faith. Aspen’s contribution landed alongside Pitkin County, Eagle County, Snowmass, Basalt, Carbondale, and Glenwood Springs, together raising $16 million for the resident-purchase.

The residents borrowed the outstanding $26 million to complete the $42 million buy from ROC USA Capital, a company that helps finance resident-purchases of mobile home parks.

Though unsure what will come, Doyle believes the city will continue to invest in downvalley housing as opportunities are available, either for people who work in Aspen or for those who work for the city directly. 

“We’re running out of space to build meaningful employee housing in this end of the valley,” he said. 

The 277-unit, $360 million Lumberyard Affordable Housing Project is the city’s latest effort to pursue housing in the Aspen area — something he said might be one of the last of its kind. 

“It’s the last large piece of property to build on,” he said of the plot, which is located at the south end of the Aspen Airport Business District. “Once it’s built, we won’t be able to build a large project like that. From here on out, we’re just going to be trying to fill in the cracks with housing.”

Council Member Sam Rose said that future housing in Aspen’s urban growth development boundary might come in the form of redevelopment to increase the density of existing housing areas that have adequate transportation infrastructure. 

He added that he saw the city’s contribution to the mobile home purchase as an “emergency situation” and a wide-spread community effort to ensure those members of the workforce didn’t lose housing. The L3 Conversion “unit priority” purchase, on the other hand, was more a gesture of goodwill to Habitat for Humanity but was not setting a precedent, Rose said. 

Council Member Christine Benedetti, too, said the city’s priority is building housing in Aspen’s growth boundary, while investing downvalley will be taken into consideration on a “case by case” basis. 

“I can see a future where we’re inundated with requests,” she said of downvalley housing opportunities. “And at some point we’ll have to have a larger discussion about the strategy behind that … but each of these opportunities was worth investing in.”

Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.