December 31, 2008 - Snowmass Base Village and Wind Rose, Aspen CO

Another Base Village proposal stalls

Another local development project has fallen victim to the national credit crunch and bleak outlook for real estate sales.

A partnership involving longtime local developers Jim Chaffin and Jim Light has severed a contract with Snowmass developer Related WestPac to build a fractional interest club in Base Village.

“We’ve essentially suspended the project given market conditions,” said Andrew Light, who was heading the project for Wind Rose, a collaboration between Chaffin and Light and David Wilhelm, their partner in Basalt’s Roaring Fork Club.

The developers had secured a recommendation for approval from the Snowmass Village Planning Commission in the fall, and were weeks away from going before the Snowmass Village Town Council with their plan.

The proposal would have created a 20-unit fractional ownership club in what is known as Building 11 in Base Village. Wind Rose had to secure new development approvals because the building had been approved in 2004 along with the rest of Base Village for 51 whole ownership units.

The partnership would have bought the land from Related WestPac after securing approvals for the club.

“We had a contract with Related WestPac but we never closed on the property so we didn’t lose any money on the land,” said Light, “but we lost a lot in planning and soft costs.”

A specific ownership program for the club had not been decided on yet, said Andrew Light, although the concept as explained by Jim Light last year was a membership club in which owners would also be able to use its sister properties. Locally, those include the Roaring Fork Club and the yet-to-be-developed Lift One Lodge at the base of Aspen Mountain. The Lift One Lodge is currently part of a master planning process for the Lift 1A side of the mountain that could get Aspen City Council approval in mid-January.

Properties in California’s wine country and coastal Mexico were also included in the “32 Winds” program.

Andrew Light said that pulling out of Base Village doesn’t affect the company’s other Roaring Fork Valley properties. The Base Village club would have grown the company’s business efficiently because it would have used the Roaring Fork Club’s operating team to oversee it.

“We just decided to walk away when we realized we wouldn’t be able to get a construction loan and there weren’t any buyers,” he said. “Given the market we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

Building 11 is currently included in a Related WestPac proposal just beginning its way through the land-use review process. That plan includes a proposal for fractional ownership units in two other buildings as well as other more minor changes.

Meanwhile, a slightly different Chaffin and Light partnership that also includes a Pennsylvania real estate private equity firm is still under contract to buy a portion of the property the Silvertree Hotel sits on. That transaction, which has no foreseeable closing date, would involve the Chaffin and Light partnership developing a slopeside membership club, similar to the Roaring Fork Mountain Club they currently operate in the Silvertree complex.

Chaffin and Light have a long local history. In 1978 they bought 3,000 acres in Snowmass Village, developing the Snowmass Club and Creekside employee housing, among other neighborhoods, and putting forth two of the early proposals for a base village, which failed for various reasons.

The company eventually turned its attention downvalley, to the Roaring Fork Club and properties in Glenwood, as well as elsewhere in Colorado, but came back to Snowmass to be a partner with Related WestPac in the redevelopment of the Snowmass Mall.

About one year ago, the Chaffin, Light and Wilhelm partnership sold its interest in that company, as well as its interest in the Snowmass Inn, also to Related WestPac.

“We’re still interested in doing something in Snowmass,” said Light, referring to the future project on the Silvertree Hotel site.

Original Story - Aspen Daily News