ROARING FORK BROADCASTING COMPANY
The city of Aspen is waiting on a select few people to remove their belongings from Aspen Mini Storage before it demolishes the units to begin work on the Lumberyard affordable housing development.
Tenants of Aspen Mini Storage near the Aspen Airport Business Center were given four month’s notice on March 1 that all belongings needed to be removed from the storage units by June 30. About 230 of 250 tenants have vacated their units, according to an email from Chris Everson, the city’s senior project manager of affordable housing development.
Now, the city is preparing final notices for the few who have yet to vacate their units.
“We fully expect, since it appears that most of the remaining folks seem to have changed and not updated their contact information on file with their lease, that most of the remaining folks will not receive that final notice, just like they did not receive the initial notice,” Everson said in the email. “For this reason, we are continuing to advertise generally in the local newspaper, and we are also actively looking for those folks via phone calls and emails to any known prior contact information on file and any additional contact information that we can dig up through local networking and by searching online.”
Everson expects there will be a handful of units with items that need to be removed. The city is anticipating demolition at Aspen Mini Storage to begin on or around Nov. 1. It will work with a selected contractor to recycle or dispose of the remaining goods in a manner that aligns with the project’s less-than-90% waste diversion goal, he said.
The Aspen City Council approved the $10.8 million purchase of the three-acre Aspen Mini Storage parcel in January 2020. The lot abuts the city-owned Lumberyard property and will be part of the approximately 300-unit affordable housing development. The city purchased the initial Lumberyard property in 2008 and began conceptualizing the project in 2019.
Council members gave a green light to the project in September 2023. It will include 277 to 304 housing units with at least 467 bedrooms, according to project plans.
The Lumberyard project is projected to take place in four different phases. The first will tackle utilities, roadways and other related infrastructure improvements to support the development. Demolishing the structures at Aspen Mini Storage will jumpstart that phase.
The city has received proposals from contractors for the utility and infrastructure improvements, which is expected to begin in early 2025 and run through 2026, Everson said.
It also has received proposals from developers for the financing, construction and operation of the housing units, which is planned to potentially begin in mid-2026, he said. The timing may vary, depending on which developer the city selects for the housing portion of the project. Council will see a staff recommendation for a developer in late 2024 or early 2025, Everson said.