Category: Snowmass

Aspen Skiing Co. wants to be “the catalyst” for completing Snowmass’ Base Village and would like to develop a Limelight Hotel and 10 luxury cabins called the Fanny Hill Townhomes beginning next summer.

SNOWMASS VILLAGE — This fall, the most visible sign of forward progress in Base Village will come in the form of a new “sanitary sewer,” a decidedly unglamorous infrastructure improvement that will pave the way for construction of the Viceroy Hotel’s second phase by Snowmass Acquisition Co., an affiliate of Related Cos.

Skico would like to build a Limelight Hotel or Limelight-esque property in the heart of Snowmass Village’s restarted base area.

When scientists and volunteer assistants wrapped up their excavation of the Ziegler Reservoir in 2011 to ride triumphantly in Aspen’s Fourth of July parade, they left untouched 90 percent of the deposits congealed in peat and clay.

Did humans kill a mammoth 50,000 years ago and then cache the meat for later use? Circumstantial evidence of rocks intermixed with bones suggests that was the case. If so, it would rank as one of the major scientific discoveries of the decade, putting people on the North American continent some 36,000 years earlier than what is now generally agreed upon by archaeologists.

Scientists consider the 6,000 bones, including those of at least 34 separate mastodons, and other material excavated from Ziegler Reservoir in 2010 and 2011 a trove of prehistoric treasures.

Snowmass Acquisition Co. LLC’s recent application with the town to build the second phase of the Viceroy Hotel signaled the first forward motion on the stalled base-area development in five years.

SNOWMASS VILLAGE — When Related Companies put Base Village under contract recently, the package of assets did not include the right to brand and operate a hotel as The Little Nell Snowmass. “The license agreement was terminated in late 2010,” said Jeff Hanle, spokesman for Aspen Skiing Co.

SNOWMASS VILLAGE — When Related Cos. announced May 1 that it had reached an agreement to buy its Base Village back from four European banks and settle ongoing litigation with those banks, executives at the private real estate company characteristically left many questions unanswered.