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Base Village: What’s built, half-built and on the drawing board

Brent Gardner-Smith
Aspen Journalism

When the town of Snowmass Village officially approved the planned-unit-development project for Base Village, it included 1.034 million square feet of residential and commercial space across 26 buildings (though the project’s plans clump some structures as being part of the same “building”).

The official “buildings” shown on the plans are labeled as Buildings 1 through 13B.

Of the slightly more than 1 million square feet of development, 844,123 square feet were designated for residential development — across 610 units — and 190,195 square feet were set aside for commercial space, according to a detailed report on the existing approvals prepared by Oz Architecture for Lowe Enterprises in January 2011.



Major construction of the project began in March 2006 and lasted until November 2009, when the Viceroy hotel opened in Building 13A.

Some relatively minor construction on the project has occurred since then to improve the exterior appearance of some unfinished buildings and to make a portion of Building 7 — the village’s central arrival building — functional. But other than that, Base Village construction has been on ice.




Construction completed

The first phase of construction included the building of a large parking garage on which seven buildings sit. The garage has 626 parking spaces with 259 designated for commercial uses, 203 for day-skier parking and 164 spots for residential parking.

Also completed between 2006 and 2009 was Building 1, known as the Hayden Lodge and home to the Treehouse children’s center. It has 48,843 square feet, with 22,500 square feet being residential units and 26,343 square feet of the space used for commercial purposes.

Buildings 2A, 2B and 2C — the three buildings that make up the Capitol Peak Lodge — also were completed. They total 146,343 square feet, with 107,729 square feet of the buildings’ space attributed to residential. The highest point of the highest building is 82.5 feet.

Buildings 3A through 3E were completed and house the Base Camp restaurant, Aspen Skiing Co. ticket offices and Slice, Snowmass Bakery and Four Mountain Sports in the red-barn building. Collectively, they contain 24,669 square feet of space.

And 13A, the Viceroy, was the last building finished before major construction stopped. It consists of 209,055 square feet of space and 152 condo/hotel rooms. From finished grade, its peak height is 97 feet.

So what wasn’t finished? A lot.

Construction suspended

Work was suspended on Building 8, which was to open as The Little Nell Snowmass. Eighty-three feet tall, it was to contain 95,893 square feet of total space, with 27 luxury residential units — at an average size of 2,055 square feet — spread across 66,118 square feet. The building was to house a private mountain club with 5,210 square feet of space.

The foundation of Building 13B also was finished before construction stopped. The base is the top of the parking garage for the Viceroy. As approved, this condo tower would rise to 87 feet above finished grade and contain 83,613 square feet of space — all of it designated for 72 condo/hotel units.

Related’s first “baby steps” in the restart were seen this winter in suspended Building 7, designed as the arrival center for the entire project. Upgrades to the entry area and some modifications cost the developer between $600,000 and $700,000.

The transit center sits directly at the end of the bridge built on lower Wood Road. It’s approved to be built with 29,474 square feet of space, with 18,449 square feet of residential space across 10 units. Its highest point was approved at 87.5 feet.

Buildings designed and ready to permit

According to Oz Architecture, Buildings 4A and 4B and Building 6 were fully designed and ready for building permits when work on the project stopped.

Buildings 4A and 4B are to be located behind the base terminal of the Elk Camp Gondola building in the village center. At a maximum height of 54 feet, they include 13,116 square feet of total space and have four residential units above retail spaces.

Also good to go was Building 6, just behind Building 7. It includes 17,177 square feet of total space, with 14,622 square feet of residential space across nine units.

Design in progress

Design work was under way on Building 5, which is located on the roof of the parking garage next to the ski trail that connects Assay Hill to Fanny Hill.

At 75 feet tall, Building 5 includes 92,123 square feet, of which 86,205 square feet was needed for 57 condo units. The building was meant to be one of the main gateways to the core of the village from the parking garage. It also was viewed as a Little Nell Residences project.

In the center of Base Village, buildings 9A and 9B would offer a total of 2,512 square feet.

Conceptual buildings

There are also some very big buildings that have been approved, but not designed, for Base Village.

Buildings 10A and 10B, across from the Enclave, are side-by-side. The tallest point of the two is at 96 feet. Together they account for 118,570 square feet — all of which is to be used to build 90 residential units.

Building 11, across Wood Road from the Viceroy, is to top out at 87 feet and have 50 condos across 63,570 square feet.

Building 12 — higher up Assay Hill than the Viceroy — is 74.5 feet high with 41 units taking up 55,435 square feet of space.

Also in the conceptual stage is a 3,500-square-foot Aqua Center building. Off to the side of the project are the conceptual Fanny Hill townhomes, which include 11 residential units adding up to 24,425 square feet.

Aspen Journalism is an independent nonprofit news organization working in the public interest. See more at http://www.aspenjournalism.org.

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