Aspen One aims to create housing and childcare capacity in Snowmass, Roaring Fork Valley

Austin Colbert/The Aspen Times
Aspen One is in the process of adding 250 new employee beds to the Roaring Fork Valley — including 30 in Snowmass Village — and other mountain communities it operates in. This includes contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to additional housing and childcare projects.
“We are guided by our values and recognize the role we must play in all communities we are part of,” Dave Tanner, Aspen One president and CEO, said in a Monday press release. “We have been working hard, and with urgency, to be a leader providing real, tangible solutions that help alleviate the community challenges we face, and the momentum we’ve gained in the last year, along with continued investment, has led to tangible outcomes that we are so proud of.”
It has completed or made significant investments in seven projects in Colorado, Idaho, and California.
- The SHOP: This 30-unit housing project in Snowmass Village is being designed to provide long-term, year-round housing for Snowmass Mountain and hospitality operations personnel. It is currently in the approval process with the Snowmass Town Council, with a target construction start date of fall 2025 or early spring 2026.
- EJ Crossing: This 20-acre property now under contract is already zoned for more than 100 residential units and will become Aspen One’s largest housing neighborhood project ever. All units will be 100% dedicated to year-round workforce housing for Aspen One employees and the broader community.
- Limelight Ketchum and Limelight Mammoth Housing: Aspen One’s housing team is actively working with hotel leadership to secure between 32-40 beds in Ketchum, Idaho, and Mammoth, California, where the hotel operates. These units will provide critical housing access for vulnerable employees in these mountain communities, where housing shortages have worsened.
- Tiny Town: After more than five years of work, Aspen One has completed Tiny Town, a neighborhood of 95 tiny homes at the former Aspen-Basalt Campground site. This marks the company’s largest housing development to date. Of these units, 54 have been made available to year-round employees this spring, supporting long-term housing stability.
- Tenants for Turns: This industry-leading program continues to provide unique employee housing solutions across the RFV, entering its fifth year this winter. Tenants for Turns incentivizes homeowners who are willing to rent a unit, ADU, guest house, “in-law” unit, or an extra bedroom to an employee, in exchange for a ski pass or comparable incentive. The program is a creatively collaborative solution that calls on the support of our dedicated community to tackle local housing issues. This program will launch for the 2025-26 winter season on July 1.
- Resident Ownership for RFV Mobile Home Parks: Aspen One is proud to join a broad coalition of Valley-based municipalities, counties, private employers, and organizations by contributing $500,000 to support the resident purchase of the Basalt and Carbondale mobile home parks. This collective effort will preserve nearly 140 homes and ensure long-term affordability for almost 500 residents. While we remain committed to investing in new affordable housing, protecting existing community-rooted options like these is just as vital to maintaining the fabric of the RFV.
- Blue Lake Preschool: Aspen One is thrilled to partner with BLPS to expand their childcare capacity. With the facilitation of the $500,000 contribution, Aspen One is providing additional support to enable adding 33 licensed seats, an expanded infant room, new toddler room, and a new after school program for BLPS’ Little Blue location in Carbondale. BLP’s long history of providing high-quality childcare in the mid-valley is outstanding, and as Aspen One continues to seek out creative solutions to expand capacity in the entire valley, partnerships such as this are needle moving.
“We are grateful to all our community partners for their support, collaboration, and continued dialogue around these issues that deeply impact all of us,” said Tanner. “We have much work left to do, but know that together, we can achieve our shared goals.”
Aspen’s pet portrait events to raise money for local animal organizations
WDR, a local marketing agency, will be launching the Roaring Fork Valley’s newest magazine, “Four Legs and a Tail this year.” To celebrate, four local pet-friendly events will be happening this week to fundraise for four animal organizations throughout the valley.