Drive to the end of Ute Avenue, past the turnoff for Stillwater and the little cluster of homes that back up to the Roaring Fork, and you hit the same fence line that's been there since 2017. Five acres, half-built townhomes, a construction permit that's outlived two presidential administrations. The Aspen Times once described the property, accurately, as sitting dormant. Locals who walk the East Aspen Trail past it every summer have started to file it in the same mental folder as every other boarded-up storefront downtown: another building someone gave up on.
That assumption is wrong on the one detail that actually matters. The Aspen Club isn't part of the slowdown everyone blames on a single developer. It's the outlier in a group of properties that looks identical from the street and tells a completely different story once you read the paperwork behind it.
The Confusion Is Understandable
In March 2026, Aspen City Council sat through a work session devoted entirely to the town's stalled construction sites. Community Development Director Ben Anderson and Chief Building Official Bonnie Muhigirwa walked through a list that included the Aspen Club, the former Crystal Palace, the former Bidwell building on East Cooper Avenue, 404 Park Avenue, the former Boomerang Lodge, and the Buckhorn Arms building across from City Market. Every one of those addresses, except two, traces back to developer Mark Hunt. The Aspen Club and the Lift One Corridor project are the exceptions.
That distinction gets lost in casual conversation because the visual evidence is the same everywhere. Plywood. Silence. A permit number posted somewhere nobody reads. Mayor Pro Tem John Doyle put the frustration plainly at that same session, noting that several downtown buildings have sat under construction for nearly ten years and calling that no way for a tourist economy to look. He was talking about the Hunt properties. Most residents, understandably, hear "stalled Aspen building" and picture all of them at once, Aspen Club included.
What the City's Own File Says
Anderson didn't mince words about how confusing this has gotten, even for the people whose job it is to track it.
"This is the most frustrating part of Bonnie and I's work, is this topic and it's confounding to us. We work on it every day, and in spite of those best efforts, I think these projects continue to be of concern, and rightfully so."
Here's what his memo actually says about the Aspen Club specifically: the property was originally permitted in 2014 and is most recently awaiting an approved change order. That's the entire status update. One line. Compare that to the Crystal Palace, which got its first permit in 2017, stalled, was formally extended in 2019, and then needed a change order that required new sign-off from the Historic Preservation Commission before the developer could move ahead with what's now planned as an RH Guesthouse, bath house, spa, and rooftop restaurant. Or the Buckhorn Arms, which has been in permit review since 2020, six years and counting, before the city confirmed in March that issuance was finally imminent.
The Aspen Club's paper trail is comparatively boring. That's the point.
Six Sites, Two Very Different Timelines
| Property | Tied to Hunt? | City's stated status (March 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| The Aspen Club, 1450 Ute Ave | No | Active permit since 2014, awaiting one approved change order |
| Former Crystal Palace | Yes | Active permit, change order required Historic Preservation Commission review |
| Former Bidwell building / Red Onion, 434 E. Cooper Ave | Yes | Exterior core and shell largely complete, interior finish permit for the Red Onion space not yet submitted |
| Buckhorn Arms, 730 E. Cooper Ave | Yes | In permit review since 2020, issuance described as imminent |
| 404 Park Avenue | Yes | Dilapidated, anticipating redevelopment for affordable housing |
| Former Boomerang Lodge | Yes | Dilapidated, eyed as the residential piece of Hunt's larger project |
Lift One Corridor, the seventh project the council reviewed, isn't on this table because it's the one the city says is actually moving. That project includes an Aman hotel and the Chalet Alpina condo and commercial concept from HayMax Capital and the Irongate Group, and developers there have already started site prep and begun marketing future residences.
Why the Aspen Club Ended Up Here in the First Place
The site's history explains why it looks the way it does today. The property has been a fitness and tennis club since the 1970s, first under founder Bob Goldsamt and later under Julie Anthony and Dick Butera. Michael Fox bought it in 1996 and won city approval in 2010 to add fifteen townhomes, six condos, affordable housing units, and a rebuilt club facility. Construction started in January 2016, and the club closed that year to make way for it, with members shifted to reciprocal privileges at other Aspen facilities.
Then it stopped. In the fall of 2017, a lender pulled a second round of financing worth $15 million, subcontractors walked off unpaid, and the project's general contractor, PCL Construction Services, filed a $17.7 million lien and a lawsuit that sat in Pitkin County District Court for years. Bankruptcy filings from that period described exactly how unfinished the site was when the money ran out: fifteen townhomes between 60 and 80 percent complete, six condos at roughly 30 percent, the commercial component also around 30 percent. That half-finished state, not active neglect, is what's still visible from Ute Avenue.
The company behind the original permit, Aspen Club Redevelopment Company LLC, was formed in April 2014 with Fox as registered agent. State business records now list that entity as delinquent, which tracks with what happened next. After a foreclosure auction on January 6, 2021, the property sold to a partnership of Meriwether Companies, Revere Capital, and Fireside Investments for a lone bid of $52.59 million. Fox's group could have reclaimed it during the redemption period for $53,062,621 and chose not to. Garrett Simon of Meriwether described the new plan as restoring the club to its role as a center of community life, with twenty three and four bedroom residences alongside the rebuilt fitness and wellness campus, a project the company has put at roughly 144,000 square feet total. PCL, the original contractor, agreed to come back and finish what it started.
That 2021 sale is why the Aspen Club's file looks cleaner than its neighbors on Cooper Avenue. There's no active bankruptcy, no pending mechanics' liens, no six-year fight over Historic Preservation Commission approval. There's one ownership group, one contractor, and one change order the city is still reviewing.
The Neighborhood That Wraps Around the Fence
None of this happens in isolation from the rest of East Aspen. The Aspen Club and Stillwater subdivisions share direct access to the East Aspen Trail, reachable on foot past the Benedict Building without ever touching a car. Up the hillside, Mountain Valley homes look south across the Ute Chutes and Ute Cliffs toward Sunshine and New York Peak, while Northstar Preserve holds some of the largest, most private lots in the neighborhood, including Colorado lodge style homes built by longtime local builder Lee Pardee. Knollwood, Eastwood, Morningstar, and Difficult round out a patchwork of small pockets that share little beyond their proximity to the river and the mountain.
East Aspen doesn't have its own restaurant row, and it doesn't need one. Element 47 at The Little Nell, Butcher's Block, Spring Café, Kenichi, and the newly opened Parc Aspen all sit within a ten-minute walk or a three-minute drive, which means the neighborhood trades a commercial strip for quiet streets and keeps the short trip into town for dinner. The Aspen Club sits inside that same walk, on the quiet end of it, which is exactly why its stalled status has stuck in so many residents' minds longer than a downtown storefront might have.
What to Actually Watch For
The next real update on this specific property will be whatever the city decides on that pending change order, not a fresh council session about "stalled buildings" in general. If you want a signal that construction is genuinely resuming rather than another cycle of permit paperwork, watch for site activity along Ute Avenue itself rather than headlines about downtown Aspen's other vacant buildings. Those are different problems with a different developer, moving on a different, considerably slower clock.
The plywood looks the same either way. The file behind it doesn't.
If you're weighing what a property like this, or any home along Ute Avenue and the rest of East Aspen, actually means for your own plans in the neighborhood, Aspen Lodge Properties can walk you through what's really happening on the ground. Schedule a Confidential Consultation to talk specifics.
