Snowmass Center goes on the market for $38.92 million

Rick Carroll, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer



This conceptional rendering shows what a redeveloped Snowmass Center with a Main Street would look like. Courtesy of CCY Architects, Design Workshop

A Snowmass Village community gathering place that includes a supermarket, pharmacy, hardware store and post office has hit the market for $38.92 million.

That’s more than twice the amount the ownership acquired the complex for in 2016, but the property comes with redevelopment potential that it did not have eight years ago. Approvals are in place to build 64 free-market residential units and 10 employee-housing units and to redevelop commercial space of up to 58,433 square feet.

The employee housing units combine to encompass more than 11,300 square feet. The existing Snowmass Center doesn’t have a residential component.

A planned unit development approval process was lengthy and arduous, as can be the case with many development proposals that come down the local land-use pike. The project gained final town council approval in December 2020; the building rights are good through 2030.

The Snowmass Center’s address is 16 Kearns Road; it’s located off Brush Creek Road near the roundabout that routes motorists to Base Village and the older mall above. The Alpine Bank property is not part of the Snowmass Center, which has such tenants as Clark’s Market, Sundance Liquor & Gifts, Daly Diner and Taster’s as well as other retailers offering daily needs. The center also houses office space and professional services that include real estate firms and financial offices.

Ownership of the Snowmass Center, Eastwood Snowmass, acquired the 1978-built complex for $16 million in March 2016, according to property records, before embarking on a public outreach campaign and an approval process that culminated in November 2020 with the town council’s OK of the project’s final development plans.

Jordan Sarick, president of Eastwood Snowmass, said the timing seemed right to put the property on the market, noting that last fall did not bode well with “geopolitical uncertainty, inflationary pressures, headwinds in the capital markets. September, October and November weren’t exactly the cheeriest time in real estate or world markets. And I think now is a decent time where people are returning to the office, paying a little more attention, and I think in general there’s more optimism for the market.”

The redevelopment project was pitched and approved as a retail and residential community with its own Main Street. Underground parking, new pedestrian walkways and a community park are included in the approvals.

“There was a lot that went into what we thought made a good plan and the right size for Snowmass — getting the community to buy in and the council and the planning commission,” Sarick said. “But one of the things that became somewhat clearer is while our original idea was that we could be the master developer of this whole site, it became very difficult to separate the various development components — the way the phasing works, the way the construction management plan works, the grading, the municipal infrastructure, water, sewer and roads, all of those things.

“Rather than being fairly neat and divisible and separable, it became inseparable and more like spaghetti carbonara than a neatly stacked lasagna. Because of that and a number of other factors, I think it’s appropriate or at a point and time where we need to pass the torch.”

The new owner of the property, Sarick said, would be beholden to the redevelopment approvals.

“The developer has obligations vis-à-vis the town; any new owner-developer is going to be obliged to build according to the plans,” said Sarick, noting the community can take comfort in knowing the next ownership can’t just come in with a new set of development ideas and implement them, he said.

“They have security knowing that that’s exactly what’s going to be built and if doesn’t get built that way, then you restart the process and the community gets a chance to weigh in a substantial way,” Sarick said.

Gabe Molnar of Douglas Elliman Real Estate has the listing for the property, which went on the market Jan. 11.

“We don’t have a target in terms of days on market,” Sarick said about the listing. “Obviously getting a qualified buyer is very different than getting a qualified buyer for a single-family home.”