‘We want the world on this one’: City Council gives the OK for Armory Hall contract
Aspen Historical Society/Courtesy
With many questions still hovering around what Mayor Torre described as a “bear of a project” with a $25 million price tag, Aspen City Council ultimately approved on a 4-1 vote Tuesday staff’s request for a contract with CCY Architects for Armory Hall design services, as well as the additional anticipated funding to complete the project.
Staff had advertised a request for proposal (RFP) for a design team to develop construction documents for the remodel of Armory Hall from Oct. 26 to Dec. 18, 2023. Within that time, the city received 16 bids in total with nearly all proposals having a Colorado or Roaring Fork Valley connection.
A review committee consisting of staff from Asset, Engineering, Parks, and Community Development departments came together to recommend the valley firm CCY Architects.
Council member Sam Rose started questions off on Tuesday by asking Aspen Development Manager Jen Phelan if an operator RFP had been issued in the interest of securing a managing operator for the Armory for the time when remodels of the historic building are complete.
In response to Rose’s question, Phelan explained that in following City Council’s request, an operator RFP and Request for Quote (RFQ) was issued last February with the window officially closing last Monday. She said that while there had been some interest expressed during a pre-bid meeting, ultimately, staff did not receive any proposals.
Rose followed by asking if there was speculation as to why no operator proposals had come in during that time frame. Phelan responded by saying that one comment staff received was that the RFP was a “bit premature” and needed more clarity regarding the parameters of the scope for the project before feeling comfortable to enter into a contract to operate the space.
Torre agreed with the sentiment that it was slightly premature for professionals to sign on to a project of this magnitude while still in the early stages as well as with the many separate components the Armory hopes to feature such as visitor/U.S. Forest Service information center, restaurant service, community space, and potential retail.
“I think that’s a somewhat broad and slightly amorphic kind of proposal at this time,” he said. “Finding somebody who is willing to check all those boxes and take all that on, as Jen said, I think they would want to see it come together more before they were the managing operator.”
According to a staff memo and reaffirmed by Phelan, CCY Architects was selected primarily for the firm’s experience with commercial, restaurant, lodging, and historic projects, as well as experience of the subconsultant team and its understanding of Aspen’s regulatory environment.
“What CCY talked about is how they would deliver the services that we’re requesting,” she said. “They do very heavy, front-loaded work sessions with stakeholders at the beginning to really make sure they really understand the project at the very beginning, which I thought personally was a really great aspect of their proposal.”
CCY’s proposal includes five parts starting with enhanced schematic design followed by land use review, design development, approval, and construction documents, with each step estimated to be finalized by April 2025.
The total budget appropriated for the project in 2023-2024 was $1.02 million. With approximately $68,000 having already been spent, $952,000 is said to then be available for 2024 with approximately $1.5 million being needed to complete the contract cost.
As stated in the staff memo, additional funding beyond the contract value will be necessary in 2024 for additional expenditures, such as a geotechnical study, contracting a construction manager/ general contractor for cost estimating, advertising needs, and other associated project expenses.
As a means of covering these additional expenditures, a staff recommendation was proposed for an additional 15% above the contract amount of $367,724 to cover extra costs. Overall, a total supplement of $1,867,220 is said to be needed in order to continue to move the project forward.
Torre expressed concerns that with the Armory’s transformation into a food hall at its current location along with a $25 million building renovation was still going to be a “very difficult profit center.”
“I’m trying to think of what the actual revenue income here is going to be,” he said. “I think at the end of the day, it’s going to be so the margin is going to be so thin that we’re probably going to end up having to rent this out for private events just to be able to make the building sustainable for community use.”
In looking to the next steps of the project, Phelan told the council that schematics should be done in August followed by an additional public outreach event and a council goal of seeing construction commence in 2026.
“We feel like the public needs to be involved in this project, and we have work sessions that would be scheduled with council to check in and make sure we are right on track,” she said. “This is a big community project. We have got to get it right.”
To reach Jonson Kuhn, email him at jkuhn@aspentimes.com.
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