“Aspen Club Living” Coming to Life
-Carolyn Sackariason
Plans to completely transform The Aspen Club and Spa are taking shape and its owner’s dream of turning the facility into a healthy living retreat unlike any other in the nation is in the home stretch of becoming reality.
Michael Fox, managing partner at the club, said schematic designs have been drawn up for the 90,000 square feet of additional space, which includes 20 condominiums that will be sold as timeshares, 14 affordable housing units and an underground parking garage with 41 spaces. Most of the new development will occur on the property’s lower bench, near the Roaring Fork River, on the current site of the club’s five tennis courts.
Plans also include renovating the interior of the club, to the tune of about $5 million in capital improvements and programming, the highlight of which is a new outdoor swimming pool open to the public, complete with food and drink service.
The development team is in place, investors have signed on and groundbreaking for the estimated two-year construction process could come as early as the end of this year.
Fox noted that actual construction on the $60 million project should take about half the time he spent going through a complicated approval process with City Hall. The project was first proposed in 2005 but the owners withdrew the application in February 2006 due to a perceived lack of support at the City Council table. It was reintroduced in 2008 and eventually approved with a 3-1 Aspen City Council vote in 2010 after a lot of back-and-forth negotiations.
“It’s a complicated project that impacts a lot of people,” Fox said. “At the end of the day, I think we did a great job and I think council did a great job trying to understand and coming to the right conclusion.”
Fox said he realized after going through four-and-a-half years in the governmental approval process just how boring it was.
“It’s just not that interesting,” he said. “This is fun. We now get to be creative. We get to put together a really great facility. … It will be groundbreaking in the country in the delivery of health and performance.”
Aspen Club Living
The club, originally designed in 1976 to be a tennis and racquet facility at the end of Ute Avenue, will become a healthy living retreat center. The concept is for condo owners to come to Aspen for an extended health retreat. When the timeshare units aren’t occupied by owners they will be available for groups, families and single travelers who participate in special one- and two-week healthy lifestyle programs. There will be 40 keys available for rent in the residences, the architecture of which will be a “Colorado mountain-style of warm contemporary” with wood and stone exteriors, said Bill Poss, owner of Poss Architecture and Planning who is working on the project.
Auberge Resorts, owners and operators of hotels and residence clubs, partnered with Fox last year to help manage the tourist-condo component. Fox said he teamed up with the company because of its hospitality expertise and his longtime relationship with Eric Calderon, the longtime general manager at The Little Nell who is now chief operating officer of Auberge Resorts.
Calderon said he saw the opportunities as well, and the product is in line with what Auberge specializes in.
“Our specialty is offering deluxe service for owners,” he said. “I have known Michael for 20 years and we thought, ‘how can we join forces?’”
Fox — who was part of a partnership that bought the facility in 1996 — has brought other investors on board, and is in the process of securing construction financing, he said.
The Aspen Club will be responsible for selling the residences, which could generate between $80 million and $100 million in sales, based on estimates. The club has pledged to add a 0.25 percent assessment to all timeshare sales, which will create a fund that can be used for the enhancement of health and wellness in the community. The local nonprofit Aspen Community Foundation will administer that fund, with oversight from City Council and The Aspen Club.
Gutting the interior
The private club will get an overhaul, which last occurred in 1997. While some of the work is cosmetic, such as new carpet and paint, other aspects of the project will bring completely new amenities.
“One of the new interesting features is replacing the existing indoor pool with a much longer indoor/outdoor pool,” Fox said, acknowledging that there is probably more anticipation from people, including his wife, for the pool than anything else.
The pool is designed to come straight off the building and will have a retractable divider that can accommodate seasons. Indoor hot tubs also are part of the plan. An indoor/outdoor yoga studio will be built next to the pool, utilizing the natural light, Fox said.
The club’s entrance will change so that when people walk in, they are immediately in front of a new cafe, featuring juice, coffee and “grab-and-go” service, Fox said. The check-in areas will be moved further back in the facility.
“We want to kind of open up the public spaces without having to check in,” he said.
Chris Council/Aspen Daily News
Plans for the condominiums, shown here in a digital image, as part of The Aspen Club’s healthy living retreat center, are shaping up. The project is expected to break ground either this fall or next spring.
Also on the upper level, the physical therapy department will expand by 30 or 40 percent. The cardio deck will be moved so it is under a large skylight and expanded.
The men’s and women’s locker rooms will get an overhaul, including new whirlpools, saunas and steam rooms; cold plunges will be added.
On the subterranean level, an existing but non-functional 3,000-square-foot basketball court will be redone so that it can host indoor basketball, lacrosse and soccer. The court, currently used for storage, will be slightly larger than it is now with a raised track suspended above.
Four new group fitness studios will be added throughout the club for spinning, aerobics, performance training and yoga.
One of those studios will take the place of the existing salon. A new spa area will incorporate those salon services, along with massage and other amenities, and will for the first time have its own men’s and women’s locker rooms.
A new kids’ area will be built somewhere in the facility, as will a teen room with pool tables, air hockey, ping pong and video games, Fox said.
Outside, the club’s exercise stations along the Roaring Fork River will be expanded upon, and there will be a rooftop garden with fire pits and hot tubs.
“It’s for those who just want to get away,” Fox said. “It will look back over the pool and Ajax.”
A delicate balance of sequencing
The most complicated and laborious part of the project will be the underground parking garage outside, and the spa inside, Fox said. The pool and affordable housing will be some of the last pieces completed in the construction process.
“In some ways the interior is more complicated because you are dealing with an existing building,” Fox said. “We are completely redoing the look and feel of the club. We tried to use as much of the existing building as possible in the new design. … The club piece should be done relatively quickly once we get going.”
It’s too early in the planning process to know whether it makes sense to break ground this November or in April of 2013, he said, although interior work on the club is likely to get started next winter. The development team — comprised of Steeplechase Development Partners, Poss Architecture and Planning and PCL Construction — will work this summer on a phasing and construction plan.
There will no doubt be interruptions to the existing business operations — the club has about 1,800 members — but the plan will be designed around keeping the club open during construction
“PCL’s strategy is to be absolutely sensitive to coming up with a phasing scheme that minimizes the impacts,” said Chad Olivier, construction manager for PCL. He acknowledged, however, that the club might have to close for short periods of time during the shoulder seasons, although that’s the worst-case scenario.
“There are a lot of variables and it’s a complicated project with a renovation and new construction,” Olivier said. “It’s a great and exciting project, which we thrive on.”
Jack Donovan, owner’s representative for Steeplechase and a consultant on the project, said the development team’s pre-planning is key to a successful construction project.
“The better the planning, the better the project is,” he said. “There will be serious consideration to keeping [the club] open.”
Donovan, who has helped develop other projects like the Aspen Highlands base village and Obermeyer Place, said he is particularly excited to be part of Aspen Club Living.
“The ability to couple performance and training with really high-end living accommodations in that size of a club of that caliber in our community is super-cool,” he said. “I’m glad to be part of it.”
On firm footing
Fox indicated many times during the approval process that if council shot the project down, he and his business partners would be forced to sell The Aspen Club off in separate real estate pieces that would be developed into free-market homes.
Some have referred to that as a “shoot the puppy” scenario in which a developer says something valuable in the community will go away if significant land-use approvals, usually for high-end residential development, are not granted.
But for Fox, it was just a reality that he’s glad never came to pass.
“I got accused a lot of threatening to shoot the puppy but if we had not gotten approval, the puppy would have gotten shot,” he said. “It would have sucked so thank God for City Council and all of those guys [in City Hall].”
Fox said he feels relieved and excited about the future, and the promise that he’ll be part of something bigger.
“From a personal perspective, the knowledge that I know I am going to be living in Aspen and can raise my family in Aspen for the next 50 years, that’s what I am most excited about,” he said. “It allows us to take the company to a whole other level.
“The club is going to be pretty damn cool,” he added. “It will be worth it.”
sack@aspendailynews.com
