Ski resorts carve sites for cars
Publication: DenverPost.Com; Date:
06/21/2004
By Jason Blevins
In Aspen and Vail, slope-side parking
is the rage, and developers are tapping demand with
high-tech garages squeezed below quarter-block parcels.
Ski resort operator Vail Resorts Inc.
has buried 109 parking spots beneath a half-acre parking
lot inside pedestrian- only Vail Village. Each has
sold for $100,000 to $135,000, or up to $800 a square
foot. For a proposed nine more spaces, there's a waiting
list of 34.
In Aspen, longtime developer Peter
Fornell has sketched plans for a 99-spot, robotic
parking garage a block from the city's gondola. He
plans to sell each for $125,000.
Ten years ago, that kind of money
could buy a modest slope-side condo 10 times larger.
"Parking downtown is a nightmare,"
he said. "Has been for years. We need help."
Fornell's plan to ease Aspen's woes
is a mechanized garage that shuffles and stacks driverless
cars in a three-story garage buried halfway underground.
Spaces not used by owners would be rented daily for
$12 to $20. The structure would cost between $2.2
million and $2.6 million on a parcel worth roughly
$4 million.
Automated structures of this sort
are popular in Europe and Japan, but the only similar
garage in the United States is in Washington, D.C.
By eliminating the ramps and roads needed to negotiate,
the high-tech garage can more than double the density
of a similarly sized building.
"He's identified a technology that
is more cost-effective and efficient for a limited
amount of real estate," said Hana Pevny, president
and chief executive of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association.
"From a marketing standpoint, I think it could position
Aspen in yet another perspective of being innovative
and forward-thinking as a community."
In 1995, Aspen was the first city
in North America to implement a citywide parking system
using credit card kiosks that print parking vouchers.
That pay-and-display technology is now common.
However, some Aspen leaders are not
fond of Fornell's plan. The City Council has twice
rejected it for a host of reasons. The garage requires
some zoning and height variances, and it doesn't fit
well with the largely residential neighborhood where
it is proposed, Aspen Mayor Pro Tem Rachel Richards
said.
"It doesn't seem like it could alleviate
a lot of our parking problems," Richards said, noting
the challenges in offering public parking in an area
of town not meant for heavy car traffic. "I'd rather
see us advance more support for the mass transit goals."
Fornell, who has spent 25 years in
Aspen, said he gathered more than 1,000 signatures
on an initiative petition to get his Park Place parking
garage on the November ballot. The council rejected
the petition five months after it rejected the project
in late 2003. Fornell is now mulling legal action
to advance his parking project.
"There is a lot of public support
for this," he said. "You'd think the council would
be for it."
In Vail, the new Vail Resorts' parking
structure has been embraced. The company is spending
$85,000 to develop each space, including the price
of the land and construction costs, said Jack Hunn,
vice president of the ski company's development division.
It wasn't difficult to sell the spaces
to local business owners and village residents weary
of the five-block march from the town's main parking
structure.
"A lot of the buildings in town do
not have parking, which was probably bad planning,"
said Vail Mayor Rod Slifer, who lives in the village
and bought one of the parking spaces.
With their big price tags, the parking
spots are another reminder of how the real estate
markets of Colorado's mountain resorts resemble those
of the toniest parts of dense urban centers such as
Manhattan, Boston and Los Angeles. Comedian Jerry
Seinfeld spent several million dollars to build his
own five-car parking garage in New York. Parking spaces
in Boston's Beacon Hill recently sold for more than
$160,000.
"We are in the same situation with
our limited land," Slifer said. "It's either lease
it at outrageous rents or buy it."
Staff writer Jason Blevins can be
reached at 303-820-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com.
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