From the Ute Trail, the Aspen Club looks like a brown patch of dirt in the trees. Partly built townhomes ring its edges, and the concrete-and-steel frame of a 50-year-old clubhouse sits in the middle. This fall the view changed. A forklift, a crane, an excavator and a skid steer are working around the clubhouse. A site office that was not there in the spring now stands on the property, and about a dozen workers in hard hats can be seen from the construction entrance at the end of Ute Avenue, according to Aspen Journalism's Oct. 25 report.

The club closed for redevelopment in 2016. The construction closure was supposed to last less than a year. For almost 40 years before that, it was the center of Aspen's fitness community, with more than 1,000 members and over 200 employees at its peak. This round of equipment is different because the city has put a date on it. Small, scattered jobs no longer keep the project's permits alive. Dec. 31 is the cutoff, and much of what East Aspen was promised in exchange for this project depends on the clubhouse actually getting finished.

The City Stopped Counting Small Jobs as Progress

In 2021, Meriwether Companies, Revere Capital and Fireside Investments partnered to buy the project after it sold at a foreclosure auction for $52.6 million. Aspen Journalism has not been able to confirm how involved the three firms still are. That summer, The Aspen Times reported that the club might reopen by the 2023-24 winter season. Instead, the redesign stalled in city review. The clubhouse change order, which turns the building into what an architect called a "modern performance center and wellness destination," went through five rounds of review. It took more than three years, from the February 2023 submission to the updated permit in April 2026.

During that wait, work slowed and then stopped. The site shut down for more than half of 2024. The city granted an extension anyway and has since accepted modest progress on any one part of the project as enough to keep all five permits active. Work on a townhome, for example, also kept the clubhouse permit valid. Chief building official Bonnie Muhigirwa explained the reasoning to Aspen Journalism in March: expiring a permit "is a very punitive and final act," and it can affect a project's vested rights.

That approach has ended. In September, Muhigirwa told Aspen Journalism:

"Previously, we would see a little bit of electrical work being done, and then nothing for six months, and then another tiny bit of framing. We've said that we're not going to keep that going indefinitely. This needs to be a real return to work on the site."

What Has to Happen Before New Year's Eve

Muhigirwa called the current extension, which runs through Dec. 31, 2026, a "drop-dead" deadline. The conditions the city sent to the project team in April were specific:

• Substantial work has to continue on the townhome buildings, including reroofing, framing and flashing.
• If work under the club building permit has not restarted by Dec. 31, 2026, that permit becomes invalid.
• Applying to revise land use approvals or submitting more change orders will not count as grounds for another extension.
• The city considers further extension requests unlikely to be granted.

The new general contractor appears to know this. Crossland Construction replaced PCL as contractor of record this summer. In early July, construction manager Austin Soder wrote to the city, in correspondence obtained by Aspen Journalism, "We are looking forward to getting this thing rolling." Muhigirwa confirmed that the club building has had concrete slab inspections in recent weeks, and she believes the Dec. 31 deadline can be met. She has also said that a site office and workers alone do not count as a revival. "I'm hoping that it's not going to be in that gray area anymore," she told Aspen Journalism, "that it's going to be obvious to everyone that they're working and continuing the project."

The Calendar Crossland Filed

In August, Crossland gave the city a construction management plan and a schedule with more than 2,300 milestones. Some are as detailed as the date for the second coat of paint in an employee locker room. The first tasks, planned for this fall, are prep work on the clubhouse foundation and rough plumbing, electrical and heating. On the townhomes, Crossland is starting with structural investigations and weatherproofing. That makes sense, since the townhomes were 60% to 80% complete when contractors left the job in 2017.

The plan itself calls the schedule a "living document." Muhigirwa said it is meant for planning and information, not as a binding commitment to dates. The order of the work also matters. Construction of the affordable housing could start later next year, but only after real progress on the clubhouse pool, because the access ramp and materials staging overlap the workforce housing parcel. The housing timeline depends on the clubhouse, and the clubhouse depends on what happens before Dec. 31.

Promises From 2010 Still Waiting on the Clubhouse

The Aspen Club was always allowed to run athletic facilities in a residential zone. Adding timeshare lodging was different. It required a Specially Planned Area designation, which meant showing a public benefit. The 2010 approval ordinance put those benefits in writing:

1. Free office space for two nonprofits.
2. Millions of dollars in upgrades to the club's facilities.
3. A commitment to keep at least some community access to the club regardless of membership status.
4. Twelve two-bedroom affordable housing units on site, available to Aspen Club employees or other workers who qualify through the Aspen-Pitkin County Housing Authority.
5. A 0.25% assessment on each fractional-interest sale, valid for 25 years from the approval, to fund a new Community Health and Recreation Fund.

Those conditions still apply, even though the plans were revised in 2015. None of them has been delivered, because, as Aspen Journalism put it, "no one can enter a club that doesn't exist."

The recreation fund shows most clearly what the delays have cost. Fractional sales cannot close until the units receive a certificate of occupancy, and the assessment ends in 2035 no matter when the first sale closes. On the current schedule, the fund could collect for about four years of its 25-year life. Under the 2035 sunset, each season the schedule slips takes away a season of collections.

Watching It From Ute Avenue

The Ute Trail trailhead is across Ute Avenue from Ute Park. The City of Aspen lists the trail as a strenuous, hiking-only climb of 0.9 mile that reaches an overlook after 700 vertical feet. From there it continues to the summit of Aspen Mountain with another 2,300 feet of gain. That overlook is where the club site appears as a patch of dirt in the trees, and it is the easiest place to see over the next eight weeks whether work has spread from the townhome edges to the clubhouse in the center.

At street level, the 10th Mountain Division Hut Association keeps its reservations office in the Benedict Building at 1280 Ute Avenue, next to the club, near the Ute Trail parking. The five townhomes closest to the Benedict Building were the furthest along when the property sold in 2021. Down the street, Ute Park offers three acres with a winding path toward the river, a small playground and picnic tables. The Ute Cemetery, where the first burial took place in 1880, has been on the National Register since 2002.

Crossland plans to post public updates at the site. Its construction management plan names superintendent Braden Scott as "the project liaison and sole point of contact for all public communication relative to the project." Aspen Journalism describes its Oct. 25 story as the first in a series. Coming installments will cover the club's 40 years as a fitness center and the many reasons construction has started and stopped for more than a decade.

If work on the club building permit has not restarted by Dec. 31, that permit becomes invalid.

If you live in East Aspen and want a calm, informed view of what the club's next phase means for your street, Saslove and Warwick is glad to talk it through.