Aspen School District plans for future of employees
District makes 15-year plan to provide housing for new hires
Lucy Peterson/The Aspen Times file photo
With Aspen housing prices increasing, the Aspen School District continues to make plans to house future employees.
The district will need to provide 62 additional housing units in the next 15 years to house staff who are unable to procure free-market homes, School District Director of Operations and Facilities Joe Waneka said in a Wednesday board meeting.
Waneka estimates the district would spend $850,000 per bedroom.
“So, what we’re trying to do is take a litmus test of saying, ‘OK, who’s going to retire in the next 15 years? What kind of housing do you currently have, and what does that look like for the district?'” he told The Aspen Times on Friday.
The district needs to account for the changing dynamics of the housing market because new hires won’t be able to buy or rent free-market homes, as employees could 20 or 30 years ago, he said.
The 2023/24 base salary for an Aspen School District teacher with a bachelor’s degree was $50,750, according to the district. The median rent for a one bedroom in Aspen is $7,000 per month according to Zillow Group Inc., a real estate company.
The district hopes to buy workforce units with future bond funding, Waneka said. The units will be prioritized for teachers.
In 2020, the district secured a $114 million bond for workforce housing and controlled maintenance on school campuses.
“To see a community have the confidence to invest into … an appreciating asset that’s going to benefit teachers and staff for years to come, what a great forward thinking mindset,” he said. “Because if that mindset wasn’t there, can you imagine where we’re going to be in 15 years? … There might not even be a school district by then.”
There is $3.5 million left from the original bond, he added.
In the next two to three years, they are in conversations with developers to purchase 32 workforce beds in Snowmass and Aspen for around $27 million, according to Waneka. They hope to present a concrete plan of where and how they would spend $27 million to taxpayers to secure the future funding.
“If we were to actually have someone come in and write our bond ask,” ASD Superintendent Tharyn Mulberry said in the meeting, “they would have the information to tell the voters a little more specifically what’s on tap, and what we may still need.”
The district has housed roughly 40% of their staff who expressed interest in workforce housing to date, with 98 units, Waneka said. The district has purchased 46 workforce housing units since 2016.
They discussed pursuing $100 million for workforce housing from a $177 million bond earlier this year. The bond question did not make it on the November ballot.
In the beginning of November, they bought three Snowmass studios for $2.075 million between the Snowmass Village and Snowmass Mall for their workforce. The district already finished renovating one of the studios, Waneka said. A staff member moved in earlier this week.
He expects the district will finish renovations for the second studio by late December. The third, they hope to sell to the Town of Snowmass Village, which is also in dire need of workforce housing.
In doing so, he said they hope to work with the town to reserve 10 to 12 units for their employees in the Draw Site housing project, a 78 unit workforce housing plan by the town of Snowmass, funding for which was approved by residents in the Nov. 5 election.
“They really need units just as bad as we do,” Waneka said. “So our thought process was to try to (say), ‘Hey, can we sell you one and, in exchange, maybe have an option to get into the Draw Site.'”
The town has not approved an official design for the site, according to Snowmass officials.
With the remaining 2020 bond funding, the district also purchased a Basalt townhouse for $1.6 million earlier this year and is in the process of constructing seven units in Basalt for $3.7 million for workforce housing.
The district also recently bought two buildings containing 18 bedrooms on Faraway Road in Snowmass for over $10 million. They will sell eight of the bedrooms to Snowmass next month for $4.4 million because some of the land is deed restricted and cannot be used for School District employees.
They will use the remaining for workforce housing.
“In my 20-plus years, this is one of the toughest markets,” Waneka said of his time purchasing real estate for school districts.
But he said this is the only school district he’s worked in that has provided housing for its employees. The other districts where he worked were under far less housing pressure and sought real estate to add buildings to their campuses, rather than for their staff.
“The citizens of Aspen should be proud that the district has such a sizable portfolio of appreciating assets,” he said.
Skyler Stark-Ragsdale can be reached at 970-429-9152 or email him at sstark-ragsdale@aspentimes.com.
Aspen School District plans for future of employees
The district will need to provide 62 additional housing units in the next 15 years to house staff who are unable to procure free-market homes, School District Director of Operations and Facilities Joe Waneka said.
Aspen Mountain, Snowmass open early amid incoming snowstorm
Heavier snow is expected to begin Monday night, with Ajax and Snowmass anticipating 1 to 2 feet by Thanksgiving, while Aspen proper could see 6 to 10 inches.
