Getting your player ready...
In 1940, when Aspen was a hamlet waning from its gold rush days, the U.S. Forest Service built a small compound at N. 8th and Smuggler Streets beside a neighborhood of old Victorian houses, to manage the surrounding wilderness. Fast-forward 73 years and Aspen’s ‘West End’ comprises some of the priciest real estate in the world: Homes within a block of the Forest Service’s campus are on the market at $2.97 and $3.8 million, two at around $6 million; with signs out at $8 million and $13 million on properties two blocks up the street.
So it’s no small matter that the Forest Service is getting set to take a sizable piece of its block-long site, and sell it by way of GSA’s real property disposal program. On Aug. 27, five sites will be auctioned off – all larger than 6,000-square-foot city lots, one well over a quarter-acre. “The West End has been the most active sales area of Aspen for the last couple of years,” says Brian Hazen with Coldwell Banker Mason Morse, one of many agents looking over the opportunity. “It’s showing appreciation where not all areas are; it’s strong and very desirable due to its flavor and location.”“The real opportunity in this is to have more than a minimum building site,” says Rich Doak, Recreation and Land Officer for the White River National Forest, pointing up the possibility that a single buyer could take all of these, getting the best part of an acre, and work with the city on a variance that might allow a larger home. A buyer would also, notes Doak, avoid a cost that builders typically have to pay when building new: tearing down a smaller, older Aspen house. The USFS will take proceeds of the sale under terms of a 2005 act and upgrade its low-density campus to better energy guidelines, keeping its amphitheater and rebuilding its bunkhouse and residences (accommodations for rangers and interns in a town with absolutely foreboding lodging prices). Meanwhile, all five lots, platted to city R-6 specs, each back to a tree-lined irrigation ditch owned in part by the city that screens off future homeowners from USFS’s property. Not surprisingly, the Forest Service’s phone has been ringing off the hook, some buyers offering to buy lots on the spot. But the way to make bids is via RealEstateSales.gov to download a packet: A $50,000 deposit is required to bid in the live auction, 10 a.m., Tues. Aug. 27, at Aspen Meadows Resort, 845 Meadows Road, Aspen. You can bid online via BidSpotter.com (must pre-register at least 48 hours before). After each site is offered, there’ll be an opportunity for bidders wanting multiple sites to counter; but in the end, highest bid on each site wins. City of Aspen setbacks/zoning apply to all. William Rollings at GSA is at 817-978-4324. WHERE: 5 home sites in Aspen’s coveted West End, zoned R-6, sized 6,600 to 11,600 s.f., live auction Aug. 28, sites may be purchased collectively. N. 8th & Smuggler Sts, Aspen; take Hwy 82/Main Street west from downtown, follow 82 around onto 7th, continue north 4 blks to Smuggler, left 1 blk PRICE: $50,000 deposit required for bidders; 2% co-op to brokers WHEN: Tues., Aug. 27 at 10 a.m. PHONE: William Rollings, GSA, 817-978-4324
