HomeMy WebLinkAboutminutes.apz.19880315
Planning and zoning March 15, 1988 1
l ANDERSON The meeting has been called to order, folks. What is the
2 scenario for this evening?
3 RICHMAN The way we'd like to work it tonight is that I will once
4 again begin with a brief presentation and the point of
5 the presentation will be to bring us up to speed as to
6 where we were last week, the decisions that you made last
7 week and the directions that you gave the applicant. The
8 applicant will then present to you design changes that
9 they've made in response to your comments and we'll try
10 and wind up architecture with any further comments and
11 further directions from the commission. Following that
12 we'll move into site planning questions and at that point
1 we'll try and do them issue by issue, in other words, I
14 will raise the issue we brought up in the memo, the
15 applicant will respond, there'll be any questions or
16 comments. And. I'd like to, if we can at the end of each
17 issue get a sense of is P & Z satisfied with, can we go
18 on from there or is there more that you'd want, in other
19 words, it'd be good to have a feeling of closure about
20 each item as we go through it so that we sense, at the
21 end of the meeting, if we've gotten through the entire
22 memo. We are not going to talk about housing tonight.
23 That's the one area that we definitely are not prepared
24 to speak about. The applicant is trying to do some work
25 with the housing authority to try and get closer with
that board because obviously, there's a huge gap between
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 2
what the housing authority is recommending and what the
2 applicant's prepared to do. So that one is going to be
3 delayed at least for a week right now and it's possible
4 more.
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HARVEY
RICHMAN
HARVEY
ANDERSON
COLOMBO
HARVEY
RICHMAN
HARVEY
COLOMBO
HARVEY
RICHMAN
I would hope next week would be
I don't think you're going to be able to get it to the
housing authority
The housing authority's going to Mexico
That's where all that cash-in-lieu's going?
If possible, could we have a board situation like we had
last week where we have 2 hours of lectures and then
That was our opening lecture. Now we're here to discuss
I don't have a lengthy presentations to make certainly,
and I don't think you guys do either
I love to talk
Well, the problem is the situation is that you end up
forgetting about what question you had in mind earlier
and drop the point totally, so I'd rather just if we can
just jump in
It's part of our plan
Okay. Well let me just do the quick going back over
where we were last week. As you recall, there were 4
issues that we identified with respect to architecture.
The first one was with respect to the massing of the
project, particularly on Mill street. We talked to you
to a great degree about ways of creating greater
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 3
transparency in the building's facade. We talked to you
2 about possibly breaking up the Mill street facade into
3 two separate buildings, which the applicant suggested
4 wouldn't work from any kind of a service standpoint. And
5 we also talked about other ways that you can break up
6 that facade, which would include varying roof heights,
7 lower in someplaces, higher elsewhere or other techniques
8 that you could use. We continue to feel, at that staff
9 level, that the project is out of scale with Aspen in
10 terms of the facade but it was very clear at the hearing
11 last week that the P & Z members were generally satisfied
12 with the way the massing had been broken up and the
1 techniques used. And that's the sense that I came away
14 from the meeting with. The second thing that we talked
15 about was the idea of squaring off the building, that the
16 squaring off that had occurred to the building at the
17 upper sections along both Monarch and Mill which included
18 a reduced setback on Monarch from 15 to 8 feet, we
19 concentrated on the impact on Monarch street and we
20 talked about the fact that the angling allowed sunlight
21 onto that street, that it allowed views up from the
22 private residences to the mountain. You seem to agree
23 with the problem. At the hearing, a number of comments
24 from the pUblic, I would say that the P & Z generally
25 concurred that there was a problem along Monarch street.
You identified a different solution, which was that of
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moving the rear portion of the building back somewhat off
of Monarch street. The applicant is going to be able to
present some changes to you tonight which do move the
building back further. I'm not sure how much further it
has been moved back, and we'll need to see if that if
successful and does accomplish the desired end. So,
that's something I'd ask you to look out for. Point
number 3
Excuse me, wasn't Mill street included in that, as well?
No. In the directions that we received, you wanted to
move the building away from Monarch towards Mill
That's only on the Monarch front. What about the Mill
street frontage. I said the same thing about the south
end of the building from Mill street
Oh, you did? I didn't hear that at all
That's one of the reasons that I'm bringing this up
I very distinctly did
HUNT
RICHMAN
HUNT
HARVEY
RICHMAN
HUNT
HARVEY
HUNT
RICHMAN
Well, no one on my team heard that Roger, so we will, we
can talk about it
Well, I said, I think I referenced in the form that the
same is true for the south end of the Mill street
section, it could be moved in.
Okay. There were a couple of points where an individual
p & Z member might. have made a statement that wasn't
necessarily the consensus of the the entire commission
and I'm looking to you tonight to tell me where you're
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 5
hearing something going, yes, we all really did expect
2 that to occur because we left the meeting, I left with
3 not a lot of clear direction other than moving the
4 building back off of Monarch.
5 WHITE After 3 hours we were all asked to give our opinion. I
6 like what Jim said earlier, and most of us at that end
7 of the table probably made them shorter than we would
8 have but I think that we mentioned the scales on both
9 Monarch and Mill. I mean, I think they are both of
10 concern to us.
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RICHMAN
PEYTON
HARVEY
PEYTON
HARVEY
Good. Again, this is why I'm bringing this up so you
have a chance to make clear what areas need to be worked
on.
I would just like to make a comment that I think it was
kind of dangerous since we were all giving kind of
capsule summaries of our first impressions, you know, 25
words or less is.about what we had. To feel like we have
signed off on the architecture question at this point,
you know, I think we were just kind of beginning to form
our opinions, and to think that because we didn't discuss
it for an hour at the end of the meeting, that that's all
we had to say about it, is
We know better than that you guys are through.
I got the feeling that maybe you felt that because we
didn't make speeches
I think the press and some couple of individuals felt
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 6
that way
2 PEYTON felt that since we didn't make long speeches that we were
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SARPA
RICHMAN
all just perfectly happy
Again, we didn't think that. No way.
Again, I think this is all wonderful because I'm far from
satisfied with where we've gotten to and I hope we can
get much further. The third general issue that we
brought up was that of architectural style. We made the
statement to you that this building as a permanent
addition to the town certainly should not try to emulate
any of the neighboring buildings which are much less
permanent in this style and really add good will to the
community in terms of overall architectural character.
We did, however, suggest that the building try to pick
up some of the elements of Aspen's other permanent
buildings rather than bring in what I would cOnsider to
be an entirely foreign architectural style. We talked
a lot last week about Victorian and I feel like maybe I
made a mistake in using the work victorian because that
connotes things so specifically to people. I think
Ramona picked up on that comment and talked about
westernizing the balconies. It's not my concern or not
my desire in any shape or form to create what I would
call a pseudo-Victorian building in Aspen. Mary Martin
was correct. I am not a fan of pseudo-Victorian
buildings. I am a fan, however, of buildings which are
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 7
sympathetic to some of the other permanent buildings in
2 Aspen which means sympathetic in terms of scale, in terms
3 of elements of other buildings in town. Those elements
4 could be Victorian, they could be western, they could be
5 Alpine, they could takes features of any of the permanent
6 type buildings and try to meld them in, to a certain
7 extent. Particularly try to meld the scale in. I
8 continue to focus on scale as opposed to victorian as
9 being the issue here
10 ANDERSON Jasmine
11 TYGRE This whole question of compatibility was something that
12 I was very concerned about because when we were going
1 through our Code revisions, I noticed that the very word
14 compatibility and the concept of it was something that
15 P & Z can spend a lot of time on. We were particularly
16 concerned that compatibility not state or even imply
17 Victorian, which you've obviously pointed out. That we
18 were not necessarily endorsing cryptogingerbread as the
19 salt of the future or that we felt that we were neces-
20 sarily equipped to make these kind of stylistic decis-
21 ions. One of the things that was specifically discussed
22 and rejected by the Commission was an architectural
23 review board, either composed of Commission members who
24 certainly didn't want to have anything to do with it, or
25 other architectural review board. This is a decision
that we decided was not appropriate. And we felt that
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 8
part of the thing we were kind of looking for was to work
2 on the constraints that were not objective, such as
3 things like height, setbacks, blocking views, sunlight,
4 things that could be somewhat quantified and not give
5 ourselves the opportunity to get boggled down in matters
6 of personal aesthetic preference because anybody in this
7 room can make a good case for a particular style that he
8 or she likes or doesn't like, you know we've all taken
9 enough art courses to do that, even if we're not
10 architects. And we wanted to kind of avoid that. My
11 thought was that there should be different styles of
12 building in Aspen and that it's not up to the P & Z to
say, well this style is Aspen, it has Sorrel boots and
14 a down jacket, it's Aspen, you know, I don't think that
15 we have the right to say that kind of thing and I think
16 we're really being put to the test by a building which
17 is so very different from other buildings that we've seen
18 in this community, although it's not particularly avant-
19 garde or a startling structure, and I'm really kind of
20 distressed to think that all of a sudden we're starting
21 to get into things like, I think the window should be
22 round, because I really think that that's going beyond
23 what we intended to do in the category of compatibility.
24 ANDERSON Mari
25 PEYTON I think when we talk about compatibility with the
neighborhood in a building of this scope and scale, the
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 9
neighborhood is the whole city of Aspen and you might
2 even say it's the Rocky Mountains, the west, Colorado,
3 and the thing that concerns me is not so much that the
4 windows have a victorian pointed top or whatever, but
5 that when you see this building it looks like a building
6 which is compatible with the Rocky Mountain west, with
7 the western tradition, you know red sandstone, or
8 whatever it is, something that belongs in the west and
9 the thing that concerns me about this design is that it
10 is a very urban design to me, it's urban and it's
11 European in style as opposed, and I don't think com-
12 patibility means it has to be traditional. You don't
1 have to copy the Wheeler Opera House but there are many
14 styles, for example the Hotel Lenado, it's not a copy of
15 anything but it doesn't look like something you'd find
16 in Paris. It looks like something that belongs to the
17 west, and I feel that if the architecture is going to be
18 something which is not similar to anything else, it
19 should at least be harmonious with what we have here in
20 the west, and that's one of my major objections as far
21 as compatibility goes. In fact, I think one of the words
22 that we put in the Code when we were trying to define
23 compatibility, we took out similar and we put in
24 harmonious.
25 ANDERSON We're going to re-open the public hearing a little bit
later on but if we do that right now between everybody
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 10
getting everything off their chest on the Board,
2 interrupting Alan in his presentation and Perry in his
3 response to how he addressed the concerns that were shown
4 last week, we're never going to get anywhere, so you want
5 to continue Alan.
6 RICHMAN Yea, I think this is great because the P & Z members are
7 making their points much more clearly than I am, so I'm
8 glad you interrupted, thank you, Mary and Jasmine both.
9 One item which did come out of the style discussion that
10 the applicant will respond to today is the idea of
11 dressing up, I would describe it, the corner at Dean
12 street and Mill street, the main pedestrian entrance to
1 the hotel. As I said, they have responded to that. In
14 my meeting this morning, I was told that the peak of that
15 roof form is now 62 feet, which was done in an effort at
16 trying to make it more prominent. I do believe that's
17 going too far with the height and I would suggest that
18 that be scaled back. There's nothing else on the
19 building that goes, it was 52 before, and that was the
20 highest of any of the elevations that I can recall. 62
21 really, that's approaching the tower that we had back in
22 the pre-application phase that the staff really worked
23 on eliminating but somewhere there may be a compromise
24 that the Commission and the applicant can work out on
25 that prominent feature but I think we will see that
they've been able to respond to that concern. Getting
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 11
into heights, which were the fourth concern, we pointed
2 out to you very clearly last week that the peak heights
3 of the proposed building were significantly below those
4 of the prior approval. We noted that the prior approval
5 gave heights from the mid-point of the roof to the very
6 peak of the roof that way exceeded code limitations that
7 said the peak of the roof can be no more than 5 feet
8 above the mid-point. The proposed design exceeds that
9 in several places but to a much lesser degree. We talked
10 to you a little bit about the roof forms, the roof
11 angles, gave you some thoughts about ways the roof forms
12 might be stepped down in certain locations towards the
1 ends of the buildings, increased in certain locations to
-[4 make up for any loss in area that you might want to angle
15 the roof, and I think the general consensus of the P &
16 Z was that you really didn't have a problem. with the
17 angle or not, and I didn't hear a consensus across the
18 board about a problem with the form although there were
19 some comments about the building looking somewhat like
20 a stage front in terms of the form, and Welton, you
21 certainly raised some concerns about the form, across the
22 Commission I didn't hear a huge hew and cry about the
23 roof forms. The applicant has made some changes in the
24 roof forms, but if there is a real strong feeling about
25 the roof in terms of the angles or in terms of the forms,
we'll need to hear that today because we all did not hear
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that all that clearly last week. One more issue before
I turn it over to Perry that I call the fifth design
issue and it's the one that arose in the Michael Gassman
letter that you all received, that I received and that
was published in the newspaper, and that's the questions
of blank walls, and I don't know if all of you know
exactly what we're referring to with the blank walls, I
may need a couple of drawings to just kind of walk around
this one a little bit. Can we
Do you want to do this, or do you want us to show what
Yes, let me just walk around it just for a minute and
then show the changes
Roy will help you with it. Welton, I wanted to do this
back here tonight because it was easier for the public.
There's another column there, so where do you want me to
do it. Over by the door, is that going to be, Roger's
going to be staring at the column
It's all right. I've complained before.
I'm sure you won't keep quiet. Roy, we may want to shift
those easels a little over towards the door so that it's
a little bit, I don't know. Then we've got people in
here, we've got them trapped.
This last architectural issue is one that I've been
thinking about a little bit during the review of plans
and hadn't put in the memo at all because really we
didn't focus on the extent of the issue. But I think
HARVEY
RICHMAN
HARVEY
HUNT
HARVEY
RICHMAN
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 13
1 there is an issue here and I think you're going to find
2 that the applicant is quite capable and already has come
3 up with some ideas to respond to it. The concerns were
4 the blankness of the feeling of the elevation at the
5 street level on Dean, on Monarch, and there's a similar
6 elevation on Mill. My sense of what the concern is on
7 Dean street, it's more of a perception question with this
8 elevation than I think it is a real problem in terms of
9 the way the pedestrian will be treated around the Dean
10 street area. When I first looked at the elevation, I had
11 the sense of kind of these forbidding arches, these dark
12 areas without a sense of what in the hotel was behind it
1 and what about Dean street might draw a pedestrian around
-14 the hotel when they might be walking around along Dean
15 street. If you have a chance to look at the drawings up
16 on the wall, those of you who were present at"the early
17 stage might remember the concept of the pedestrian arcade
18 that we had that wrapped around the front of the
19 building. If you recall, P & Z even went so far in
20 encouraging that arcade that we exempted 45,000 square
21 feet of covered area from FAR calculations, that included
22 porte cochere, the arcade and some entrance to the
23 parking area, but you really felt strongly that that
24 arcade should be created and I didn't have a sense of how
25 that type of a feature was occurring in there. How the
pedestrians might be treated in this front area, where
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 14
1 they would be accessing the building, where they wouldn't
2 be accessing the building and how they would be using
3 Dean street as a whole. As I say, when the architect
4 presents it to you, I think you will get a better sense
5 that in fact the feeling or the interplay of the
6 pedestrian along Dean street is not as empty as it might
7 seem to be on first glance. There's a very different
8 issue, though, on Monarch street. The question on
9 Monarch street really has to do with this elevated
10 walkway and the blank walls which were created along
11 here, and there are similar blank walls on Mill street,
12 in fact I think the blank walls on Mill street go right
1 up to the front area of the building. Again, the
14 applicant is going to have some solutions for that for
15 you. But the concern there was that added to the
16 pedestrian walking level that we have not have urban-type
17 of experience of being next to a wall that is higher than
18 the pedestrian with nothing to look through, nothing to
19 look into, nothing to break up the feeling of the mass
20 or a unified facade. The prior design used a lot of
21 balcony treatments to do that. The balconies dropped
22 down to the street level and in many cases around on the
23 Mill and Monarch street facades they also used shops to
24 do that, and that's going to be one of the treatments
25 that you're going to hear from the applicant that I think
if highly desirable for some street level activity to
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 15
enliven this area and keep it from becoming kind of a
2 dead urban area, which I think would be very unfortunate.
3 But I wanted to introduce the issue to you to let you
4 know that it is something that's present in the drawings
5 now but something that the applicant's going to respond
6 to right away. And that is enough from me.
7 ANDERSON Perry.
8 HARVEY Thank you Alan. Let me say that Gene Aubrey who was here
9 at the last meeting had a family commitment and couldn't
10 make it. Roy Haggard is his partner and is going to be
11 a doing a discussion of the design. I think to start off
12 we should just respond to some of the issues that Alan
1 has outlined and I'm going to let Roy walk you through,
"i4 as I said on, we all of us had heard that the consensus
15 was let's look at Monarch and shifting the building to
16 the east because of the potential for shading on Monarch
17 and for the neighbors there. So that's what we looked
18 at. We didn't look at squeezing it
19 ANDERSON Roger and I talked on the telephone yesterday about what
20 it was that he remembers that he says and I seem to
21 remember him having said, which was that in an effort to
22 break up primarily the Mill street elevation, he said it
23 moved the south, where that second notch is, move that
24 portion in closer to the courtyard so you end up looking
25 up Mill street with a block of building and then this
HARVEY a jag in the interior
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 16
ANDERSON Yes. Basically that the courtyard would end up being
2 shaped something like that, like an inverted keyhole
3 rather than a U
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RICHMAN
HARVEY
HAGGARD
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Okay
I recall that
But we'll be winging it on that portion. Roy, why don't
you start out and walk them through this.
The way I'd like to start is not to get behind Alan but
to start out with a comparison of the site plans in our
interpretation was that in an attempt to alleviate some
of the constriction on Monarch would be to look at either
shifting the entire building or we did talk about
shifting this south section of the Monarch street side
understanding we've got a parking garage under here with
access off of Mill street, there are several pretty
substantial constraints that keep us from shifting it too
much. This site plan will look very similar in the
comparison overlay that's still on that one really won't
change that much but in our study to maintain an economi-
cal and a functional parking garage layout, be able to
get in and out of it, at the sacrifice of 2 feet out of
our terrace area, which is some instances shows up a
little better on the model, we've literally taken 2 feet
out of the terrace for the guest rooms on the first
occupied guest floor of the hotel and slid the hotel
directly to the east 2 feet, which in effect gave us a
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 17
2 foot more breathing along the Monarch street side.
2 The plaza that we're trying to maintain on Mill street
3 at Dean, obviously the further we shift the building the
4 more constricted we get here, the more constricted our
5 access becomes and once again we've got a pedestrian edge
6 along Mill street that we really don't want to jeopar-
7 dize. Just to give you a little bit of background, the
8 hotel, once again, is set by the function of modules for
9 guest rooms and Ritz Carlton has some very specific
10 standards set for what those modules should be. It's not
11 as easy as basically reducing the modules in here to pull
12 these two arms in. Everything really has to shift within
1 the structure that's been set and through our research
'1:"'4 and the studies we did, 2 feet short of eliminating on-
15 street parking on Mill and Monarch is about the best
16 we've been able to do. Once again, we've come up with
17 some alternate concepts with how we treat the pedestrian
18 edge along Monarch street in an attempt to alleviate some
19 of the severity of that walk coming down to the pedes-
20 trian level. We've also taken another look at what
21 happens on the Mill street edge, and we'll get a little
22 bit more specific into that as we go along. But as far
23 as the building shifting and as far as what we've been
24 able to do with the siting of the building, that's where
25 we are.
HARVEY
Roy, what would happen if the building shifted, that
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 18
southern portion of the Mill street shifted in?
2 ROY Well, if this, it's the same on either end, Perry, if the
3 building shifts, once again, an attempt to get as
4 efficient hotel as possible, the rooms are all double
5 loaded off a central corridor, and once that building
6 shifts 2 feet, a foot, the corridors that connects all
7 the rooms begins to shift, the structural system and
8 everything that goes along with it gets a little bit more
9 complicated. But the main problem is with regard to the
10 corridor.
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ANDERSON Shifting the corridor, if anything, would tend to
decrease what might end up appearing to the guest as, you
know, the world's longest bowling alley, just offsetting
it a few feet would tend to break up a very long and
perhaps uncomfortably long appearing corridor.
HARVEY Is the Commission concerned about the loss of open space
in there on the site by pulling this in? I mean it would
give it, it would create more on the outside
COLOMBO Well I think it's a problem to begin with a concept of
open space. The open space as you now have it is
primarily for the guests, for the Ritz Carlton guests
only
HARVEY For anyone who's inside the hotel and the hotel is open
to
COLOMBO Correct, it's limited, it adds limited open space value
to the public. Technically it is open space and it's
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Planning and Zoning
correct
ANDERSON
HAGGARD
COLOMBO
WHITE
ROY
ANDERSON
COLOMBO
March 15, 1988
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Technically it's sort of open space, sort of for the PUD
process
We made adjustments to that and we'll come to it
So I think that's a big issue we have to talk about
altogether
Roy, I'm trying to understand your module system. Let's
take on the front wall looking on Dean street, if you
took out just a full module, top to bottom, figure out
how many rooms those are and stuck them someplace on top
of the hotel someplace else, we could then effectively
move this whole thing in easily and have flexibility.
Has that been looked at?
Yes, I apologize if I lead you to believe that that was
the only constraining factor. We also have a 10,000
square foot ballroom downstairs and meeting rooms and
when we start closing in too much, the effective us of
the ballroom, the effective use of the meeting rooms
downstairs is also jeopardized. But you're right, if we
dropped a module out of here, we could do that but there
are additional public space requirements down below which
preclude us from doing that.
It would have ramifications from top to bottom of the
building but I, it's not an impossible adjustment to
make.
Right.
On that same thought, you know that's what
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 20
architecture is all about is, I'm sure Ritz Carlton has
2 their requirements for module size, but if they want to
3 build in Aspen, they have to adjust to what is the . .
4 . of this community and I think that's what the challenge
5 of architecture is.
6 ANDERSON Okay. Mari
7 PEYTON Could you explain the terrace that is on the Mill street
8 side, is that a private terrace or is that a public
9 ROY It's a private terrace. Primarily what happens as the
10 building, the primarily entry level of the hotel is at
11 or about grade at Dean street. As the grade begins to
12 climb up Mill street at a certain point, those guest
rooms become below grade guest rooms, so in order for us
'"1:'4 to be able to utilize those guest rooms, we pulled a
15 terrace out in front of them to use that eastern edge as
16 retainage, which is also the walking surface and the line
17 for the planting, but that basically is a 12 foot wide
18 terrace that as you can see in the model drops down along
19 that sidewalk edge. Unlike what you see in the model,
20 this is taken from prints, you don't see
21 HARVEY They're not going to be able to see it if we do that
22 RICHMAN Just tell me which way you want it set up. Let's look
23 at it that way.
24 PEYTON So the pedestrian whose walking along that sidewalk, they
25 look into a pit, is that
ROY They're looking down into
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 21
HARVEY enriched pavement, terrace, landscaped outside the rooms
2 PEYTON And that's about how many feet high
3 ROY Well, at the very end about 12 feet
4 PEYTON So they're looking at the very end of a 12 foot
5 ANDERSON encriched terrace or pit depending on your point of view
6 ROY There's also a small strip of softscape that we've
7 introduced at the eastern side of that retaining wall
8 that actually berms up the side of it to reduce the
9 apparent height of that wall
10 PEYTON What keeps the pedestrian from falling into that.
11 ROY There would be a wall that would follow the line of the
12 slope (tape)
PEYTON My feeling about that is we might be wanting to make
1:4 great changes in the way the open space is laid out
15 before sending them into a model
16 COLOMBO But wouldn't you like to get a feel for it, it's'a pretty
17 large project. I'd like to get a feeling for what's
18 being proposed
19 ANDERSON The open space we're talking about is two different
20 kinds. There's the kind most of us are going to see
21 walking up Monarch or driving up and Mill streets and the
22 kind that we might see a few times as a non-guest in the
23 central portion. And I think it's more important to the
24 Commission and to the community that we realize that a
25 balance between the interior and exterior open space.
PEYTON Well my feeling is that, you know, the open space is in
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 22
the wrong place, you know, that's more than
2 COLOMBO And that's why I'd like us to look at it because if we
3 could see how the open space is being presented there may
4 be ways to cut into it and make that more transparent
5 from public view.
6 ANDERSON Well I didn't see any hands when I asked
7 WHITE I think time can be better spent doing time on something
8 else of more importance than that and that all the
9 Commission feels, there's going to be some changes and
10 I think that you didn't have support for the model, so
11 HERRON Welton
12 ANDERSON Mickey?
HERRON As long we're going make them have a shading study, can
r4 we have in there what the existing approval would do.
15 ANDERSON If you can get it onto the computer the way they did it
16 for the Little Nell hotel, it's a matter of saying we
17 moved it 2 feet and trust us it's going to make a
18 difference on Monarch street versus really addressing the
19 concerns of the neighbors in a way that can be more
20 accurate and judged
21 WHITE The difference in the height from the approved and what
22 you're proposing also should be in there, too, because
23 that's the difference right there. If you build it to
24 the old height you got much more shading then you ever
25 did with this new one
PEYTON Maybe, maybe not
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RICHMAN It is very debatable given the form of the roof
HARVEY All right, you want to see that study with the approved
and our . . .
ANDERSON
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ANDERSON
HARVEY
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HARVEY
RICHMAN
ANDERSON
I think that without what was approved, it may turn out
that that is going to show to have 22 percent more
sunshine on a year, winter long basis, I don't know.
I don't know either. We'll find out.
Where were we?
Talking about this and Roy was going to go into, you
know, when you're ready on this issue of Monarch and the
moving of the building. We're going to move to the roofs
on the, right, is that what you want to do next? Do we
have enough direction from you now on this issue or do
you want
I'm confused about which issue we're talking about now,
I mean we've been jumping around
Well we started about moving the building off of Monarch
and the treatment of Monarch street and we're going to
deal with that more when we take you and really walk you
around the building and show you the changes we've made
from a pedestrian viewpoint, you'll get a feel for
Monarch in addition to Mill and Dean.
The areas you asked for changes were on that Monarch side
obviously the Mill as well, but that didn't come through
as clearly, particularly on roof forms
It was my sense from Roger, and I agree with him, and
Planning and zoning March 15, 1988 24
that's there's perhaps something wrong with the width of
2 the building or the setbacks to the building at its lower
3 end, at the eastern end. But as it gets into more large
4 scale residential environment higher up then maybe some
5 concessions as far as reducing the courtyard, thereby
6 increasing the sun to both Mill and Monarch, does that
7 sound reasonable?
8 HARVEY Is that something the Commission is
9 RICHMAN We had suggested stepping down some heights. You're
10 suggesting stepping back the building. Similar effect
11 but
12 ANDERSON Or maybe a little of both. We not about to prescribe any
design solutions to you, just a lot of good advise.
14 WHITE Pulling out a module is not a bad idea, because that
15 really pulls it back a whole side
16 TYGRE Can we continue with the discussion before we start
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redesigning the building.
The other issue we looked at as a result of some of the
comments that were made last week primarily was your
comment regarding the entrance from Mill street and Dean
street, how pedestrian that was, how much difference
there was between that and the other entrances, whether
or not that was really an appropriately different event
than the previous one. What we did in response to that,
these didn't color because the colors and materials
really hadn't changed that much. We went back and took
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 25
another look at the concept that we were trying to use
2 with identifying the entrances whether they were
3 pedestrian or vehicular. And going back, not all the
4 way to a previous scheme with regard to the clock tower
5 that we had there, but we agreed with the fact that
6 something a little more special needed to happen at that
7 corner to identify it specifically as a different
8 entrance than the vehicular entrances. In conjunction
9 with a request that we try and soften some of the roofs
10 and by virtue of the fact that we've got hotel suites in
11 this tower in lieu of typical guest rooms, we were able
12 to introduce a little more curved roof. We still have
guest rooms behind it. We feel that this whole elevation
14 needs to be something a little more special. We've also
15 introduced some eaved radiuses on some of the other
16 projections in the building that once again" help to
17 soften this kind of boxy portion. This should give you
18 a little bit of an indication of how much the depth we're
19 getting in some of these projections. They're not going
20 to be as thin as you see on the model but they actually
21 will be 3 dimensional. We also see here something we get
22 a little more into when we start talking about the
23 pedestrian street scape but we've introduced some
24 punctuations and penetrations through the Mill street
25 side into the ski shop, we'll call it a ski shop, it's
an activity center for Ritz Carlton, whether they're
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 26
renting skis, renting bicycles, setting up canoe trips
2 or whatever it is a small pocket park, if you would, that
3 affords guests, non-guests, just passers by the oppor-
4 tunity to sit down into an area and sit around, catch
5 your breath, relax. Similar situation we've done on the
6 Monarch street side where you saw some pretty boxy roofs,
7 we taken and introduced similar slightly curved portions
8 of the roof. What we did basically was connect the
9 change in points to an already given slope on the roof
10 to ease some of the harsh edges and we would do that on
11 the appropriate projections similar to what you see here.
12 Also, as the building comes down to Monarch street,
you've seen this elevation, we've got a situation with
14 regard to the tower how it relates to the back of house
15 and hotel function areas that affords us the opportunity
16 to introduce another terrace out in front of the guest
17 rooms on the first floor. What that does, it creates a
18 transition from the sidewalk to the terrace to the
19 building to the roof, behind which is at this point a
20 truck loading and unloading area and from this point back
21 is a service corridor and what we intend to do in an
22 attempt to break up some of the massiveness of the
23 facade, once again, utilizing the same pedestrian
24 materials, the same scale materials that we've been
25 proposing, the same cobbled brick detailing on the
pilasters but actually introduce some punctuations in
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 27
there that would help to lighten up the facade as it
2 comes down to the ground. When we get a little more into
3 the landscaping (tape) work in conjunction with the
4 pilasters to give you the opportunity to do with some
5 really nice planting beds as an edge to the building as
6 it comes down to the street. On the Dean street side,
7 once again this is the tower as you read it or the pedes-
8 trian entrance as you read it from the Dean street side
9 as it works in conjunction with some eave projections
10 that represent what we consider to be some very special
11 entrance gates into the hotel. One of the things Alan
12 alluded to previously and understanding what we were
trying to present with the last design solution, what
14 happened to my Dean street elevation, we have shown our
15 towers or our entrance gates very much like we're showing
16 them here but the previous drawing as is this one was
17 designed and presented to give a sense of the depth of
18 the building, to try and add 3 dimensions to a 2
19 dimensional drawings. What we don't show here and what
20 we haven't really made clear, and sometimes the illustra-
21 tion, the rendering makes a better case for it, these are
22 really Ritz Carlton's front doors. As you drive up you
23 see an enriched material, you see the same brick, you see
24 specific balcony railings as you drive under you've got
25 these beautiful arched coppered ceilings with the Ritz
Carlton chandeliers, we've not yet identified for you the
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 28
degree of detail that you'll experience as you get in
2 here. Unfortunately the previous submission showed those
3 as, as Alan said, as cavernous looking arches, but that
4 was intended to give you an idea of the planes that were
5 happening not necessarily what all you see as you drive
6 through. We anticipate that to be a very active place.
7 We've pulled the building back off of Dean street to
8 afford the opportunity for more pedestrian access across
9 the front of the building. There's nothing that would
10 restrict Ritz Carlton guests or any other passerby from
11 entering into any of these areas directly from the
12 street. So we see this as not as foreboding as some of
the previous plans have shown. I'm kind of getting off
"14 the roof topic. This is the current 62 foot line that
15 Alan had mentioned that proportionally, I think there's
16 obviously some adjustment that could be made tb that.
17 ANDERSON Mari
18 PEYTON I'd just like to know if you're walking on Dean street,
19 would they have a way to walk across here
20 HARVEY Yes, Mari. The next presentation we want to do is the
21 site plan and walk you all around the building and show
22 you how the landscaping works and how the pedestrian
23 works and I think what we're trying to do here, if we
24 could keep focused is deal with the pedestrian entrance
25 and the roofs, but yes.
PEYTON I'm just having a hard time getting the feel for what a
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 29
pedestrian is going to encounter at the street level.
2 HARVEY Can you wait until we get there
3 PEYTON I thought that was what he was explaining
4 HARVEY Well he started to get a little bit off, but I think we'd
5 like to get some reaction from you guys on what is going
6 on here.
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On this corner and this roof?
uh-hum (affirmative)
Oh God, I wish I hadn't asked. Is this the bells or the
whistles or the dogs or the ponies?
You asked for bells and whistles, I got no idea with what
they are, Welton.
I think the curve is a good, I hated it when I first saw
it last summer, and I think in this instance it probably
does soften it. Now let me ask, this tangent or this,
is the pitch of this former roof, is that a chord through
an arc. I think my problem was the steepness, my only
problem was the steepness of the mansard itself, and I
think another 5, 3 degrees to 7 degrees would soften that
boxy feel and taking this slope and just arcing out from
it isn't really addressing the steepness issue that I had
a problem with. Perry and I talked about reducing it
slightly more, making sure there was enough of a cornice
line so that people wouldn't be killed by avalanches.
I don't think the height of that corner is necessary to
accomplish what I was getting at as far as making that
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an important corner. I think it was the same height as
the adjoining one with a different pediment treatment,
not necessarily, is that a clock, it's not a cartouche?
That's a clock.
That's getting there. What does everybody else think
concerning these new curved roof lines and the treatment
of that corner?
Is that all the roof lines or is that just the corner
ROY
ANDERSON
PEYTON
ROY
PEYTON
ANDERSON
ROY
ANDERSON
COLOMBO
ANDERSON
COLOMBO
I'm sorry
That curve, is that just for the corner?
It looks like it's more pronounced on that corner than
it is on the other
This one is quite different from the other typical
projections with the
Those are slightly curved and this is much more
I think there may be a confusion between grand, which I
think Welton was getting at, grand, spectacular,
something special, and large, massive. I think that this
looks even larger to me.
It is larger
This gives you a feel of much more mass. I think it
becomes a more encumbered, foreboding corner and I think,
there's a difference between that and delicate, grand,
you know a bit more delicate, a softer touch, but could
still become grand and special, and I think what you've
done here is taken the features and made them just bigger
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ANDERSON
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March 15, 1988
31
and stronger, you know, taller, more pronounced, and I
think in doing that you end up with a harsher statement
but not necessarily a grander one.
Jasmine
I never had the problem on the corner that you did as far
as making is more grand as an entrance. I think I rather
like the original drawing a little better. I don't think
you need to have that much height on the corner. The
softening of the roofs, I don't know, I could really go
either way on it. I'm one of the people who did not
object to the angularity or the flat angles of the old
roofs. I think that's a certain style thing that I
really didn't have a problem with. I think the slightly
rounded edges might give you slightly more contrast and
therefore contribute to the break up of the facade so I
think that's okay.
Anybody else?
Yes. I think you softened the roof a little bit by the
curvature and I think it's a little bit better, a little
bit more pleasing. I didn't have the objection to the
corner that Welton did either, and my opinion is it is
a little bit of an overkill what you did on that. I
don't need that height.
Do you have that perspective? You see, the problem I had
it was just a large, square box staring at you in the
face
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HAGGARD Well, our thought is, and once again I think the
proportions and the scale of it can be refined to where
we can get a little closer to what you're talking about.
We see this corner as being, once again, a very active
place and we want to make sure that as a signature for
the hotel and a signature for this portion of the city
that something significant happens there.
ANDERSON To maybe amplify our street levels concerns, or sort of
a different slant on it, the entry experience in Aspen
is going to be somewhat different than the entry
experience to the Ritz Carlton in Palm Springs. people
are much, are going to be dealing with this on a much
more pedestrian on foot, day to day basis, guests and the
neighborhood than they would, say in Palm Springs where
everything is, you know, 2 steps away from your car. So
we're very concerned about, you know, the pedestrian
scale and particularly your main pedestrian entry which
is at that corner. I think that raising the height of
it is not accomplishing what I was looking for. I think
perhaps something in the window treatment. I was
actually thinking maybe 4 spikes, you know, on that
square corner. But the actual roof itself is the same
height as the rest of the roofs but it has something
coming out of the corners that says this is a special
entrance that is for pedestrians. But I'm not going to
prescribe or even suggest, presume to suggest, a
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solution. You know, maybe a bust of each member of City
Council, one at each corner. But it doesn't need to be
as blown up as was described. Jim
One thing that would happen with this corner is that,
well, I think there's some concerns about the balcony
treatment, the type of balconies for Aspen. You know
they are definitely not Aspen, but it gets amplified on
that corner and when, even when you're making it a more
grand entrance, have the balcony treatments changed there
at the square?
No
No it's about the same
What are Aspen balconies?
Well, this building
What did you ask, what are western balconies
What are Aspen balconies? I'm serious
COLOMBO
,
HAGGARD
COLOMBO
HAGGARD
COLOMBO
HARVEY
HERRON
COLOMBO
I'm serious
This building strikes me as a Boston, New Orleans,
something like that, and those balconies reflect those
type of styles and all I'm going to say about them is
that when you get to this corner and make it grander,
then that becomes even more pronounced. And where it
might have been softer, you could blend in better with
the community when it was not as pronounced. Now that
it's become a grander entrance , massive rounded white
balcony with cups at the end, it just really strikes me.
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 34
In making it grand, you're just amplifying another
2 problem or another feature that may not be perceived
3 ANDERSON We need to proceed and give them some sort of direction
4 one way or another. They would appreciate that.
5 HARVEY We would. I'm taking notes and my pencil's wandering all
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ROY
As a direct response to the concerns that I expressed
last week, I said from the eave line down I don't have
any problems. I don't see any changes. So I don't
really have any problems with that treatment. That's not
the way I would design it, but it looks perfectly fine.
I think you're going in the right direction as far as
change in roof forms and something to differentiate that
corner and make a statement that this is the pedestrian
entryway. I don't think the height is necessary
What is the roof material
We're looking at a slate, a fish scale slate on the
radius portion and then a diagonal slate or hexagonal
slate on the primary field
What's the next
The other issue that we wanted to address was the
response to the letter, I think Michael Gassman had
written regarding the pedestrian edges. Part of that,
we felt like we had begun to address with the movement
of the building away from Monarch. We've begun to
alleviate, or to soften the edge slightly along that
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 35
side. I've already gone through a brief discussion of
what we have done along this wall, as you'll see in this
elevation, to introduce penetrations through the service
corridor. We're not indicating that we want everybody
that walks down the street to be able to see directly
into the service corridor. What we're saying is there
is a way to lighten that elevation up.
HARVEY We can use some kind of box system with frosted glass
that's lit to get some warmth to it, to give it pedes-
trian scale. We can have clear windows. It is a service
corridor and a loading dock for the first 40 units (?)
but on the other hand if you put some window scales in
there, I think it works on a scale level much better for
the pedestrian, that's what we were looking at on
Monarch.
Are we addressing the pedestrian's perception of the
building from an aesthetic or from a functional point of
view. I think on the other corner opening up that ski
shop is a thousand percent better. Putting windows in
a corridor that maybe doesn't necessarily belong along
the street facade maybe should be more internal to the
building with some sort of, at least at the corner, I see
you have some store rooms and basically
It's all back of the house
It's all back of house and of course this has been turned
a little bit, so, gets the services off of here now
,
ANDERSON
ROY
HARVEY
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Planning and Zoning
March 15, 1988
36
ANDERSON Can it be, any functional amenity, street amenity,
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whether it's a headstand, an airline check-in counter,
whatever, that's not back of the store
We don't necessarily think that these windows into the
service corridor are functional. They provide the light
down into the service corridors. That would be fine.
As far as relocating a more pUblic-oriented function
directly in the corner where the loading dock is
Do we have floor plans of that entry level. I wanted to
show you, Welton what you've got in essence in the hotel,
now I can't find it, is you've got the pedestrians
oriented on the Mill street side because that's the
closest to town, and then we've got the service, back of
house delivery and everything else oriented the other
side. And it's really difficult to start introducing a
retail or some kind of shop on Monarch because if you
look at the patterns of flow
ANDERSON That was my next question.
HARVEY
.;
What are the patterns of
flow, are there any
from town, up here you've got, you know, you're not going
to 1A. If you're going to 1A you're going over another
block and you're going up.
If you're on the trail
system, Dean street's part of the trail system to go over
to connect with the Shadow Mountain trail. Mill street
we go up and we're into the ski easement that runs up and
runs all the way up to 1A and up onto the mountain so,
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 37
this is going to be a flow, this is going to be a flow,
this isn't going to be, and I'm not demeaning the Monarch
residents, but this is not much of a traffic flow.
You've got the Mountain Queen up there and Caribous and
Silver Shadow, and it's I mean
He's right. I'm not saying that there aren't quite a few
people that walk up towards 1A on Monarch and continue
to cut over, but I think relatively Mill street is by far
the more prominent and Dean street is by far and away the
more prominent streets.
That was why we oriented everything on this side as
opposed to
ANDERSON I see. Does anybody else feel that there should be some
sort of street level
activity going on
activity going on on Monarch street or is' punching
windows into the service corridor and providing those
amenities on Mill street satisfactory to address that
RICHMAN
HARVEY
COLOMBO
ANDERSON
ROY
concern?
I'd like to bring up a point real quick that Jim brought
up. One of the things that is not totally related to
that concept but it's also not totally removed, in our
previous site plan we had shown mechanical vault with our
cooling towers located on the souther, actually back in
this corner. We have since relocated those and put
package chillers on the roof for several reasons,
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 38
economics, we've got a noise problem when we get down
here, plus it enabled us to open up a portion of the
street with another small pocket park, if you would, that
allows the pedestrian that's coming up Monarch to
actually .step into a controlled environment with a
seating ledge all the way around where they can also
enj oy a little bit of the open space that we've been
trying to, not necessarily turn all inward, this is an
attempt on our part to share that with some of the
pedestrians. That gets lessened slightly as you move
down Monarch, but this is a little more pedestrian
oriented. I'll get a little bit more into that when we
get into the landscaping. But just strictly based on the
function of the hotel and the way the certain spaces have
been manipulated and pushed around to work, there's got
to be a service corridor in some place. I mean, we've
tried to constrict the majority of back of house areas
to below grade, around the perimeter but somewhere
they've got to come up, somewhere you've got to bring
trucks in to service the building.
That's entirely consistent with the approved plan,
Monarch street was the service corridor, back of house
Okay, but there's nothing to say we can't
Absolutely not
Roger
Are we in site planning
HARVEY
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ANDERSON
HARVEY
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HUNT
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March 15, 1988
39
Yes
And the next question is
It really starts to break into it very quickly, this
question of how the pedestrian deals with the site could
have easily been brought up in site planning instead of
in architecture.
Okay I want to deal with how the service access works.
Okay, we'll get to that, I think under the technical
We can get to that point. I didn't bring it up but we
can certainly get to it at any point
Walk them through Dean street and through Mill and the
pedestrian entrance and the activity center
ROY Primarily as you're an arriving guest, and we'll start
PEYTON
with that first, we're using Dean as our major means of
access, and once again, the previous scheme Was some I
think 8 feet closer to Dean street. We discussed that
in our last meeting, where we pulled the building further
away from Dean street to open this up more as a pedes-
trian alley as it connects both east and west. You've
got fairly generous landscaping that runs the full
length, in response to your question previously, the
elevations really don't give you a sense of that depth
What is the depth
ROY some 32 feet just between the curb line and the face of
the building as it comes down. Our arriving guests pull
into the porte cochere where they're met by a valet.
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 40
1 We're exploring the possibility of using exclusive valet
2 parking. The guest is
3 PEYTON Does a vehicle actually goes behind that facade?
4 ROY That's correct. They actually pull up underneath the
5 building
6 ANDERSON See here's the balcony, they drive in, they're let off
7 PEYTON Where does the pedestrian come in? They come in this
8 way, they just don't come in this way. That's for cars.
9 HARVEY Well, Mari, it's primarily, our goal was to separate the
10 automobile and the pedestrian. What we want to do is
11 take the car, take it by a valet, take it around the
12 corner and down in the garage, and this is going to be
'3 the focal point. But obviously, any entrance, the
14 entrance level, and again if I had that entry level floor
15 plan here, the entry level, which, the entry level you
16 go right, you know there's not a big elevation change,
17 you go right into the lobby, so you're going to be able
18 to see walking along the street looking over this entry
19 feature, which is landscaped, you're looking through the
20 arches, you're looking right into the lobby, the main
21 lobby, and right through and out into the terrace and the
22 courtyard
23 PEYTON What I don't understand is what is this. The car drives
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HARVEY
in here, what's here?
This is landscaped, bushes, trees, probably some kind of
a fountain feature in there, it's a Ritz entrance
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So this wall is really just
That's just an archway.
Just arches
That's right. It's up above the pull in. This is the
older plan, but you drive up under the edge of the
building here, so out here is this landscaped area, so
as the pedestrian, say you're coming from your home up
here and you're going across to go skiing, you're walking
along this environment here, when you get to here you see
vestibule, lobby, big see through fireplace, I mean, I'm
not saying you can see out from here all the way through
because that's a long distance, but if you were to walk
in and go to the main lobby of the hotel, it's a perfect
pedestrian entrance.
There's pavement coming around
through here.
When you exit the hotel, you come out,
you'll be standing there, you'll look through the arches,
you'll see this landscaping, okay?
So that interplay
between the pedestrian and the main entrance is there,
and the reason we put those arches, it would look awful
if you just had a blank wall along there because then the
pedestrian would be looking at a blank wall. So while
those arches on the elevation, on this one look kind of
dark because we didn't accent them and you didn't see
through, and you didn't want to landscape it because we
wanted you to see the elements of the building, and in
point of fact, there's this landscaping and the arches
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 42
1 go through, this is a roof plan, okay, this is the entry
2 level plan that shows you all the uses here, there's that
3 service corridor over on Monarch. This visual relation-
4 ship between walking along here and the main entry of the
5 Ritz definitely exist. It's a good pedestrian experience
6 walking along that street.
7 COLOMBO Considering how important this is right here, this
8 particular area, and you've put a lot of work into it and
9 I can definitely see an improvement, it's really hard to
10 just say that it's going to be a good experience, okay?
11 It's hard to pick up what what this is going to be like,
12 youknow, for me. I would, you know, like to see
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HARVEY How about let us built it?
COLOMBO And then tear it down if we don't like it.
HARVEY I'm convinced you would.
COLOMBO All I'm saying is you know what it's going to look like,
HARVEY
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PEYTON
I'd like to see what it's going to look like. So just,
instead of just plan form here, me trying to realize what
you're telling me is going to be a good experience, can't
you give me something to show me
Okay fine, all right, sure, absolutely. Along from
where, I mean from this point, looking through to the
lobby area
Right. It's probably fine, but I just can't get a feel
Also, I don't understand what happens right here what
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we're really seeing, is that going to be a staircase, is
that going to be all level. I mean what happens when you
go in this grand entrance, I don't have any feel for
that.
We all want to see it
the feeling I have from just looking at it is there's
going to be cars and walkers mixed up. That's the
feeling that I have, maybe you can
It'll be sort of like the drop off at Stapleton airport
The reason for the pedestrian, Mari, the reason for this
whole corner, and again this is the old plan, is to
create that experience for the pedestrian so that he or
she is not forced to compete with a taxi or a car coming
in through here. In other words, if this didn't exist,
then everyone would have to filter in through here. By
creating this ski entrance and pedestrian entrance and
this aspect of it on this corner where the pedestrian
activity is, it allows the pedestrian to have a much more
feeling of scale
But we're not trying to restrict the pedestrian, we're
not trying to tell the pedestrian he can't use that and
it will be detailed in such a way that, yes there will
be cars in there and yes, there will be people in there
at the same time, but the drop off to a hotel is a very
active place. And the material that will be used in
there won't look like an asphalt driveway that pulls up
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1 to the front door of stapleton airport. I mean it will
2 be, the difference in that elevation and that elevation
3 is roughly 6 inches, just enough to give the tires of the
4 cars a curb to stop against.
5 COLOMBO It sounds good but that's what you need to show
6 HARVEY Absolutely
7 ANDERSON Your ... between transparency seems to be, I've got some
8 questions about it, since all along the Dean street
9 elevation you have a solid wall and a room behind it
10 called. . and one called boxes and one called view
11 wi th no window, concierge, the vestibule does have
12 transparencies and its electrical, .. and storage and for
3 transparency you only have sundry and gifts. I was
14 wondering
15 ROY It was not our intention to bring the courtyard clear
16 through the hotel. From a function standpoint', from the
17 amount of hotel related functions that we have to get
18 into the box, certain things happen. The transition from
19 this space as you make your way through the lobby gets
20 more and more visually explosive but at this point,
21 you're right , it is constricted to the area of the
22 vestibule and we didn't necessarily want to give away the
23 entire lobby at once. It was also never intended for
24 this space out here to be any nicer than space in there.
25 As part of the philosophy, you're no more at home there
5 than you are there.
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PEYTON The impression that I'm getting just from looking at the
way it's planned, is that it's like a drive-in, it caters
to the drive in person as opposed to the walk in person,
and it's not friendly to the walk in person. It's
friendly to the drive in person.
That's this activity center
But that's the main, the main entrance to your, I guess
my complaint is, okay but the Dean street facade is the
longer facade, supposedly, you're saying that the corner
HARVEY
PEYTON
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ANDERSON
HARVEY
ANDERSON
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is
Almost all the traffic from Rubey park, from the center
of town, this is Mountain Chalet, Wagner park, most,
almost exclusively all of it really, is going to flow
this way, returning to and leaving the hotel. Very few
people are going to way to leave the hotel arid go this
way. The pedestrian traffic is going to be going this
way. So we oriented this here to give them on arrival
and departure point that is the most convenient and that
gives them the most pleasant experience, which is, I
don't want to be competing with cars and buses and trucks
and that kind of stuff. continue walking them around
Can we speed up because we've got a lot of people
I know we do
A lot of people who have a lot of good ideas that are
just waiting to jump in here
I can't wait
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ANDERSON And so far we really haven't covered anything we didn't
cover last week
HARVEY Well this site plan we didn't get a chance to, we were
talking elevations.
ROY Basically as you continue around the building, we pretty
well talked about the plaza, once again being a very
strong access coming off Dean and Mill street and as you
begin the trip up Monarch, we talked about the pocket
park and it's access off of Mill and it's access into the
hotel. Basically from a site planning standpoint that's
where we are
As you go up here, there's a buffer of landscaping, is
that correct, Roy?
Uh huh (affirmative)
So that, I sort of think of the Jerome, the new part, I'm
throwing stones at myself here,
Yes you are
but as you walk down Mill street and you get to the new
part and you get to the parking garage, you're walking
along this wall and there's nothing, we had discussed
doing a landscaped next to the building, and for some
reason or other, I guess we decided not to. This has a
landscaped feature here, and will get into that when DWI
talks about it, so you've got this big plaza here, that's
the pedestrian entrance plaza with planting out there,
kind of walking through all of this, here you've got a
HARVEY
ROY
HARVEY
ANDERSON
HARVEY
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 47
1 patio type area that we've talked about that would be a
2 ski corral for people to put skis in the winter time when
3 they're going in, if they're going in to have a drink in
4 the hotel after skiing; display windows in the summer
5 this will be an activity center, whether it's hot air
6 ballooning or, all the activities. There'll be bike
7 racks out here, there'll be benches out here, this is an
8 area of usable open space, then you're going to get to
9 the garage entry which is kind of a mechanical opera-
10 tional thing and therefore is not going to be that
11 appetizing, but then you go up here, we've tried to
12 create something that will be warm and soften the
'3 building and, of course, the pedestrian's looking right
14 across into their hotel room scales, it's a residential
15 scale there so I think it's going to be, Mari said you're
16 looking down into this pit, but in point of -fact they
17 eye's going to go right across to the wall of the hotel
18 which is rooms. Okay. So that's essentially. In a
19 minute, let's see what they want to do here. The other
20 thing we should do with you is the Blue Spruce building.
21 Do you want us to do that right now real fast?
22 ANDERSON Yes
23 ROY Basically the functions that we're housing in the Blue
24 Spruce site are consistent, I believe, with the submis-
25 sion. We've got 3 condominium units located on a level
5 that's roughly 4 feet above grade on this side with one
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 48
1 of the entrances to the condominiums off of Dean street,
2 but the primary entrance for the condominiums from
3 parking below the building. On grade, we've got a
4 restaurant that occupies basically the entire first floor
5 with a small outdoor dining area that fronts onto Wagner
6 park. The primary entrance to the restaurant is a
7 cylindrical cylinder on the corner of Monarch and Durant.
8 This building, as you'll notice is different from the
9 submission in that we have flipped the service drive
10 interior to our property as opposed to being on the
11 Monarch street side. We looked at trying to service the
12 building from a parking and service standpoint off of
3 Monarch but as we're fighting the grades going up, we're
14 trying to go down so the curb cut off Durant was much
15 more appropriate. From a material standpoint, the
16 building will continue a flavor very similar to the hotel
17 on a much smaller scale with use of some of the similar
18 detailing but slightly different character. In site plan
19 you notice a relatively large overhead skylight which
20 you see in the elevations that covers basically an
21 interior atrium, the condominiums wrap around the atrium,
22 the atrium goes all the way down to the restaurant level
23 so that you've got dining below the big skylight, just
24 directly through here. This is all the condominiums,
25 condominiums across here, this shows the terrace from the
5 condominiums on the Durant side projects out toward
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 49
1 Durant to create a slightly covered arcade that fronts
2 onto Durant for the outdoor dining. Once again, this
3 showing the primary entrance into the restaurant, this
4 being the elevation as you look up Monarch with the
5 introduction of a very pedestrian scale with the
6 penetrations into the building aligned with the windows
7 of the condominium above
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What's the height of the tower room
I don't have my scale. Roughly, say this is roughly 50
feet
And the rest of the building
We're using 13 floor to floor so you're right at 26
The skylight projects a little higher
That's correct.
Could you stick that rendering up please next to that to
see what they look like together. What are these right
here?
That's actually the store front to the restaurant, which
is back in this line, what you see, this arcade is pulled
out in line with the outermost portion of that terrace
and there's some windows there, the window that you see
behind of the storefront so the restaurant literally just
flows out to Wagner park.
The tower's 48 feet
I'm sorry
So that becomes a transparency to the "
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ROY That's correct.
ANDERSON Are there any other questions about the new Blue Spruce?
This is a continued public hearing from last week. I'll
re-open the public hearing
It's also a new public hearing on the rezoning
Okay, and I'll also open the public hearing for the
rezoning
The rezoning is for the corner we just talked about.
It's rezoning from L-2 to L-1 or vice versa L-1 to L-2,
I always get it wrong
ANDERSON It would be most productive if we address issues that
were described by the applicant and by the planning
office this evening rather than delving into new,
unexplored areas. So the public hearing's open. Is
there any public comment. Can you give your name for the
record
50
RICHMAN
ANDERSON
RICHMAN
MEANS
Graeme Means. I would like to present a petition which
was signed by 46 members of the Aspen architectural
community. "We the undersigned members of the architec-
tural community unanimously agree that the proposed Ritz
Carlton hotel (a) does not exhibit a level of character
and integrity that the city of Aspen deserves, (b) the
facade is inconsistent with the scale and aesthetic
quality which identifies Aspen, (c) required open space
is inaccessible to public and turns it back on Aspen
(tape) and those reviewing it to take the time to
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consider other options and take this rare opportunity to
produce a truly great building that Aspen deserves. I'd
be glad to read the names if you think it's appropriate.
Go ahead
Valley, Earl Anderson, Alan Baker, Todd Burrows, Bill
Boeoen, Elizabeth Boyles, Jim Breasted, steven Conger,
Dennis Cyris, Jennifer Darrington, Michale Doyle,
Donnelly Erdman, Michael Ernnamen, Michael Gassman, Raul
Jarres, John Gates, Ted Guy, Annarae Holloway, Richard
Klein, Cooper, Perry Lathman, Shae Lee, Scott Linnenahl,
Bill Lipsey, Kenneth McCallskil, Keven, Michale Manchest,
Graeme Means, Christopher Mellon, Robin Molny, David ..,
Melinda Pearons, Glenn Rappaport, Susanna Reed, August
Reno, Ron Robertson, Charles Scwab, STeve Serna, Tom
Stevens, Wayne Stricker, Harry Teague, Patricia Trott,
Dough, Jake Vickery, David Warner
Thank you. More public comment. Don
My name's Don Erdman. I'm also an architect in Aspen.
I'm sorry that Gene Aubrey couldn't be here tonight
because for some reason the night that he was here not
enough of us here were present and tonight there may be
too many. But I wish Gene were here because several of
us are familiar with the work he did for a number of
years he was the chief designer with S. I. Morris As-
sociates in Houston and during that period he had the
opportunity to design buildings of both a public and
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institutional nature and commercial nature so this proves
he was able to handle the scale of a building of this
size. This is the largest building conceived in recent
years and maybe ever for Aspen so therefore it is a
public building in this instance. Gene AUbrey's work,
previously and anybody can look at his work, it has been
published in architectural journals, is of a much
stronger character than this. It appears that Gene took
a nostalgic trip down the westheimer strip in Houston and
during that time commercial developers were buildings
blocks very similar to this of townhouses varying in
width from 15 to 20 feet all with the same applied
historical 19th century pastiche with delusions of
grandeur that this building seems to exhibit. I know
that Gene can do much better. This is perhaps the worst
building he has ever designed, as far as I cart see, and
I just want to reiterate our displeasure with that also
with the fact that, in this instance, the developer is
taking advantage and enjoying the open space that is
mandated by the city of Aspen rather than the people of
Aspen and this is a complete reversal of city policy.
Thank you. Yes
I'm David Emory and I lived in town for awhile here.
I'll just read from here. In recent years as well as in
the past there have been some architectural atrocities
foisted on the city of Aspen. Many of them derived from
ANDERSON
EMORY
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 53
1 rampant speculation, market planning and poor architec-
2 tural standards by the members of that profession both
3 within and outside our community. I think we are all
4 aware of recent examples. I could give you a whole bunch
5 but I think if anybody's been keeping tabs on the city
6 of late, they've seen some very good architecture and
7 some exceedingly bad architecture. But more importantly
8 it seems that the governing powers have totally lost
9 sight of our quote non-environment and are rapidly
10 pushing for urbanification, glitizification and over
11 commercialization of our downtown core. If this trend
12 continues, Aspen will be as ordinary as the cities that
3 our tourists seek to escape. The Hadid or Ritz Carlton
14 project will be the biggest development in Aspen. It's
15 impact will last long into the future. While P & Z
16 members think this revised plan is an improvement, my
17 own feeling and it gladly seems to be shared by some
18 others, is that this building has absolutely no relation-
19 ship to our mountains or our city. Why should we accept
20 mediocre design and compound the architectural malaise
21 of the recent past. Let the architects and the architec-
22 tural review board developer a quote higher standard of
23 excellence for our jewel of the Rockies. If you need
24 inspiration, take a trip out of town and visit Banff or
25 Gstaad or some of the great European resorts. While I'm
not against the hotel or growth, this centerpiece looks
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 54
1 more appropriate for the Boston Commons, Central Park
2 West or Trafalgar Square. It's quote French something
3 but mountain nothing. Surely with the financial
4 resources of Mr. Hadid here and the Ritz Carlton chain
5 they can surely do better.
6 ANDERSON Can you pass the letter up so that the clerk can have it
7 for the record. Thank you.
8 YURCHENKO I think the architects have the day here today. I
9 basically a retired architect. I must give something of
10 my background to give some credence to some of the things
11 I want to say. I was one of the 10 architects selected
12 by the AAA for its centennial exhibit in the company of
. 3 Frank Lloyd Wright and the others at the time, with
14 pleasure. But more important than that, in my practice
15 in New York, I became chairman of the architect's
16 council, chairman of the planning committee of the
17 architect's council and the New York Society of Ar-
18 chitects. We were very much involved in issues like
19 this. I thought I gave that up completely when I retired
20 to Aspen. I thought I would be able to walk quietly in
21 the streets and never even bother with it. But this is
22 a very important issue. It's an important issue because
23 I feel that I used to tell my students at Rennsaleer
24 where I used to teach master planning and so forth, is
25 that there comes a period where so many ideas are given
5 by the community that you find yourself doing a kind of
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 55
1 cannablism, you take the heart of the dromedary, the
2 lungs of a lion, the fins of a fish, all of them are
3 living good, valid things into their own organism. When
4 you try to put them together, you get a monster which
5 must die. I'm afraid this is such a monster. I believe
6 that the program there was basically wrong by the
7 insistency to put up a building out of scale out of
8 Aspen. It reminds me very much in it's objectives as if
9 you were to decide to go ahead and have a love ship, you
10 know, one of those beautiful cruisers for 5,000 pas-
11 sengers go around the islands and you want to transfer
12 this here to the middle of Aspen and give them all the
. 3 advantages of having a captain take your daughter to
14 dinner, so forth, all that garbage in there. It's not
15 appropriate. Probably this building, I would say this
16 particular building, a building of this scale; which it
17 attempts to be, for a moment I thought it was the
18 Escoriale when I looked at the drawings, then I realized
19 I wrong it is more like somewheres in the late 19th
20 century Boston residential architecture, all chopped up
21 like this. What's happening here, where's that state
22 another great hotel. A great hotel can be stated in
23 graceful building. It doesn't have to be a skyscraper
24 and it would be just as irrational to put that building
25 here in Aspen as it would be, for example, a millionaire
5 from Aspen going to New York demolishing the Pan Am
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 56
1 building, not the Pan Am building, the General Motors
2 building in front of the plaza, the beautiful fountain
3 and so forth, and decide to put a ranch style one story
4 high building in there and just hope that this will go
5 ahead and make a statement of value. It's not value, it
6 has to be related to the forces, the dynamic forces of
7 the entire environment. I believe that the architect
8 suffered like all hell in this. First of all, none of
9 this confusion of ideas back and forth so nothing could
10 organically be developed with a program that could not
11 belong at all which in a sense in moments he knew very
12 well he should never have been started in there. If this
1 kind of a large building has to be done, why not do it
14 the way the Swiss did it. On Red Mountain there I s
15 several niches and they're covered with pine trees and
16 so forth, build a large estate in there, put this castle
17 right in there, build an enclosure with a tremendous
18 fence, put living deer and pheasants and so forth, put
19 armored men, let's say in the style of the Imperial Guard
20 at the Buckingham Palace at the doors in red uniforms and
21 so forth, impress the girls as they come in, impress the
22 men as they bring their girls and friend, give them a
23 sleigh ride to slum into Aspen in the... and so forth and
24 take them directly to the slope in there. The answer is
25 very, very simple in there. Retain the ... hotel where
it reads. It needs a tremendous mountain to support a
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 57
1 big structure. By the way, the first structure was much
2 better designed than all of this, which is a series of
3 compromises. And all this sales stuff and so forth and
4 so on, all the rationalization which you people indulge
5 in, you're just wasting time, you have a disaster on your
6 hand.
7 RAPPAPORT My name is Glenn Rappaport and I'm an architect by
8 education but not licensed. I would, I think all the
9 things that have been said are great, and I also would
10 like to commend you guys because this is a very difficult
11 project. It's going to take a lot of thought and kind
12 of cooperation. For me, I think the basic beginning
1 point would be that you have to say are we as a community
14 going to allow this project to happen. I would, you
15 could say no and that would be great and the discussion
16 would be over. I would also, I mean it would be more
17 interesting to say yes and to figure out how it could
18 happen and work. I think that on a basic level of
19 architecture, this kind of a hotel, the way that it's
20 massed out implies a large wall, a large space around it.
21 It's a palace, it's the kind of thing that demands the
22 kind of entry that's palatial. This thing is really
23 situated on an alley and that's a problem, for me at
24 least. I think that also if you're going to do something
25 in the community on this level, of this scale, it would
be really great to see what the community needs and to
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try to act positively in that direction. Whether that
means, I mean just to give you an idea, there's a lot of
things that will be changing in the way the Ski Company
tries to address the way the mountain fits the town.
This thing is a lot closer to 1A than it is to Little
Nell. 1A is kind of an abortion the way the entry is
addressed. This thing could open up whole new pos-
sibilities for flow, pedestrian flow through this thing
in that direction as well as guest flow in that direc-
tion. I think those issues could be looked at. In the
same way that the museum in Stuttgart that James Sterling
did made such a nice pedestrian way through that area
that people would go out of their way from the community
to actually pass through the area, and it is a very
successful place to be. Those kinds of issues. The
other thing is that on the basic level of examining what
we as a community don't have. And I think that all the
talk about urbanizism, you know, it's kind of a nebulous
term, what do we really mean by that. We are a small
city and I think that to avoid that issue it's a kind of,
what I see is the standard solution which is we kind of
rubbleize the building, we make it, we loosen it up and
jog it up in such a way that it looks like just a bunch
of rubble. I think that that's avoiding the issue. If
we're going to put a monumental building here, we should
do that and it should be a great monumental building and
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 59
1 it should do things for the town. If somebody had said
2 rubbilize the Hotel Jerome or rubbilize the Wheeler Opera
3 House, we wouldn't have those great monuments here today.
4 I think that one of the things that we lack just on, if
5 you look at the town in general, the central business
6 district, we don't have a plaza where people can meet.
7 This thing is kind of a flaccid solution to that as far
8 as I'm concerned. I would almost rather see one smaller,
9 taller building and a giant open plaza where people could
10 gather or congregate the same way that the Seagram's
11 building is in New York, scaled so that it was more
12 appropriate to our town. I think I mean, I'm quite
1 serious, I think that a plaza like that would be
14 something that would be much more utilized than all these
15 kind of geometric joggings that are going on here. And
16 as far as function, we need a library. You know the
17 library for this town is just kind an abortion of a
18 statement. I mean, what if the first level of this
19 building somehow responded to that and this place was a
20 place that was inhabited by all the people in the area
21 that would mix with the guests and would have some sense
22 of community that would involve itself with this
23 building. I think that this solution, to me is the
24 Atlanta solution where we're trying to ward off some kind
25 of anguished population that roams the streets at night.
S I don't think that that's the answer here. We don't have
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 60
that. And I'd just like to see that those issues are
2 looked out without presupposing what our town is really
3 like because I think that it could be a wonderful thing.
4 ANDERSON Thank you. Any non-architects? Dick. Could you give
5 the clerk your name for the record.
6 BUTERA Dick Butera, the Aspen Club. I have a somewhat lengthy
7 statement that I have prepared I'd like to read and then
8 I have a couple of technical questions I'd like to
9 address, if I may. The purpose of for submitting this
10 report and my statement is to hopefully stimulate some
11 thought regarding the most significant development in the
12 history of Aspen. The only other decision that would
1 equate to the significance of the question in front the
14 of the Planning and Zoning Commission was when the
15 introduction of ski lifts to Aspen was decided. My
16 remarks are made as a concerned citizen; -not as a
17 competi tor to the proj ect. Needless to say, as a
18 competitor my remarks would be taken with a grain of salt
19 and would be suspect at best. However, I'd like to point
20 out that it is my opinion that from a competitive
21 standpoint, the worst thing that could happen to me as
22 owner of two hotels, the Jerome and the Aspen Club Lodge,
23 would be for a hotel to be built in accordance with what
24 I am about to suggest. That is, a hotel that would be
25 built in scale with Aspen, perhaps a 200 room hotel with
reasonable height limitations and aesthetically pleasing
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 61
exterior design. This would be a great disadvantage to
2 me economically in that would be closer to the mountain
3 than the Hotel Jerome and would be manageable. In
4 addition, I believe the project would even have a
5 possibility of being a financial success. The best thing
6 that could happen to me from an economic standpoint would
7 be the proposed building be allowed to be built. I
8 believe it is too large to be managed within the
9 employment base and the transitory nature of our
10 employees. It is probably an economic disaster because
11 of its size and to achieve levels of service required by
12 the proposed hotel rates that are charged would be very
] difficult. Therefore, I make it abundantly clear that
14 I favor a new hotel on the proposed site. I believe that
15 it is obvious that if a hotel is built more to scale and
16 in keeping with the architectural style of Aspen my self
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interest as a citizen will be served well and my self
interest as a competitor will be damaged. I urge the
Planning and Zoning commission and the developer to re-
evaluate the entire project. Large segments of the
community are extremely worried about the impact of the
proposed building. Many of these people are not
~.._,.
participating in this process because of the size, the
scope and the complexities of the project are beyond
their comprehension. It takes a skilled person trained
in hotel development to adequately understand what is
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 62
being discussed here this evening. In light of this, I
2 urge the P & Z to have the developer build a model to
3 scale of the proposed hotel and the surrounding neighbor-
4 hood so that the average citizen of Aspen can see just
5 what the physical impact will be. Two dimensional
6 drawings are very difficult for the most skilled person
7 to comprehend in relationship to surrounding neighbor-
8 hoods and the town at large. The P & Z places an undo
9 burden on itself by not having a two scale model for
10 review. I believe there are two people on the P & Z who
11 are trained architects, and the rest who are not have to
12 share an enormous burden of a decision like this. This
decision you are about to make will impact the city of
14-- Aspen for at least 100 years, and all the information
15 and relative data that can be made available. to you
16 should be. I do understand that the developer has a
17 scale model which is 75 percent complete. It would be
18 in everyone's best interest to have that completed, put
19 in the town's center where we could all review it. I
20 talk about now the procedure. Because the language of
21 the Code, the P & Z takes on an awesome responsibility
22 in this matter. Section 24-11.7(b) states in part that
23 an applicant previously awarded an GMP allotment who
24 deviates from any essential element of the proposal or
25 who fails to comply with the development schedule is
subject to determination by the Planning and Zoning
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March 15, 1988
63
commission regarding the appropriateness of the changes.
It's obvious that we have significant changes here from
the John Roberts plans and it's obvious that there have
been 4 extensions so that the dates have not been met.
The above language means that this commission has the
duty, responsibility, and right to completely re-evaluate
the proposal. The section refers to the applicant who
deviates from any essential of the proposal quote. The
proposal of Mr. Roberts was 100 percent different than
the one that is in front of you tonight. First of all
Mr. Roberts showed a plan that included a new building
on the site of the continental Inn.
The overall plan
that was considered at that time us by everyone's
admission totally different from this plan. Therefore,
whether it was better or worse must be decided from
ground zero. To have the development use the 6riginal
approval as the basis for the size and the height of this
building when his building and proposal is 100 percent
different is an abuse of the code.
In addition to the
obvious changes, it is important to point out that there
is a 7.8 percent increase in the total building size from
the original approved building. since size is the main
issue here, one of the main issues, isn't a 7.8 percent
increase in size of some significance.
section 24-
11.7(b) states that the criteria for determination of
whether an applicant has deviated substantially from the
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 64
original GMP proposal is also quote any change from the
2 approved architecture in site design of the project
3 quote. This is abundantly clear that in this case that
4 the architecture has been entirely changed. I would also
5 like to point out that it is our opinion that the
6 extensions that were granted by the City Council could
7 and probably have been illegal. section 24-11.7(4) it
8 is stated quote City Council may grant an extension of
9 these deadlines on showing of diligence and good cause
10 by the applicant and based on a finding that the said
11 extension is in the best interests of the community,
12 which action shall be within the sole discretion of the
city Council provided such extension has been requested
1~ to the end of the deadline period and may be granted for
15 a period not to exceed 180 days. You will note that they
16 refer in this section to an extension and to a ~eriod.
17 That sounds very singular to me and there's been 4
18 extensions and we question legally whether the developer
19 has shown that these extensions are in the best interests
20 of the community or in the best interests of the
21 developer. Granted he had serious problems with
22 bankruptcies and all that but as a citizen of this
23 community, I have yet to see why these extensions were
24 in my best interest. So the extensions themselves
25 perhaps were illegal and this whole thing could be a moot
point that we're going through now. If the Code meant
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to say that multiple extensions should be granted and
that the deadline periods meant nothing I'm sure that it
would have said that more clearly. We live under this
kind of extension discussion with some implied threats
that, you know, if we don't get the extension we will
build the other building. Well, I just hope that the
next 100 year future of Aspen isn't decided on the tail
end of a threat. Frankly, in order to get a building
permit for that site, they needs working drawings of the
Roberts' plan and they needs to get financing of the
Roberts' plan. The Roberts' plan by their own admission
is a lousy plan, and I want to know the banker who is
going to give the developer who has admitted his plan is
lousy the money. So why don't we all drop the threats
and drop the extensions and drop the deadlines and work
on a decent plan that will last and that we'll' all be
proud of and that will work for 100 years. Oh, oh, I'm
out of line here.
In urging the developer and the
planning commission to re-evaluate and perhaps redesign
the entire project, there is precedent that should be
noticed. The Hotel Jerome PUD was approved in a 7 year
process under the ownership of John Gilmore. When we
purchased the approved plans of the addition to the Hotel
Jerome, we asked the planning director and the City
Council and P & Z to fast track a revised plan. These
were the results of that request. The original approval
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 66
of Gilmore was for an 85,000 square foot addition. We
2 built 63,000. The original plan of Gilmore was approved
3 for 105 new rooms. We built 94, an 11 percent reduction.
4 The first was a 25 percent reduction. The original plan
5 called for 13,000 square feet of retail space. We built
6 zero, an infinite reduction. The original plan of John
7 Gilmore called for 450 restaurant seats, we built 220
8 restaurant seats, a 48 percent reduction. There are two
9 things that are apparent here. First there is a
10 precedent for the developer taking less than the prior
11 approval in a PUD and second Mr. Richman and his staff
12 and the P & Z and City Council cooperated in every way
to assist us in getting this approval so that we could
14 meet construction schedules. In addition to the interior
15 changes, there was a major facade change approved in that
16 re-evaluation process, which is exactly what 'we are
17 discussing tonight. The original Gilmore plan had a
18 whole bunch of copper windows and totally out of
19 character kinds of brick work and Larry Yaw and his staff
20 created what you all see today in the new facade, which
21 was part of that process that Alan Richman and his staff
22 fast tracked us through and the results are obvious. It
23 is obvious under this situation that everybody gained
24 by the resubmission and the re-evaluation of the size and
25 bulk of the project. Some would say that the Jerome
extension is still too large. How do you think those
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 67
same people and others would react had those reductions
2 that I just mentioned not have been done. Now we have
3 a reference to the need for this hotel. It has been said
4 regularly in regard to this project that Aspen quote
5 needs a new hotel. The newspapers last week reported
6 that Mr. Herron of the P & Z made the that statement
7 during last week's hearing. This statement should be
8 quantified and qualified by experts available to the P
9 & Z. Needs are not a feeling but should be measured by
10 a fact. The facts are that there's not one hotel in the
11 Aspen-Snowmass area that will report higher than a 55
12 percent occupancy in 1988. In fact, there are virtually
no hotels who have ever registered an occupancy higher
1'4' than 55 percent annually. Secondly, there are only 4
15 weeks in 1988 where it appears as those the entire market
16 was 100 percent occupied. Any time the town is not 100
17 percent occupied, it is obvious that during those periods
18 there is no need for a new hotel. Therefore, the facts
19 are that 4 weeks out of the 52 Aspen may need additional
20 hotel rooms. The question is, after the Ski Company's
21 94 hotel rooms are completed, will that 4 weeks be
22 reduced to 3 or 2 weeks. Another question must be is it
23 necessary to impact our town with such a large structure
24 to satisfy this 4 week quote need. There are virtually
25 no hotels in Aspen that make a profit after consideration
for capital investment. In view of theses occupancy
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 68
figures stated above and the economics really don't work
2 for hotels in Aspen, what other factual evidence can be
3 put on the table to show any need. Many refer to the
4 diminished ski industry figures and therefore we need to
5 build more hotels to stop the slide. These vacancies in
6 Aspen would indicate to me that there are plenty of
7 vacant hotel rooms in December and early January and
8 March and February and therefore the reduced skier visits
9 has nothing to do with lack of hotel rooms. However, it
10 would be nice to have a new hotel in Aspen. The only
11 question is in what form, shape and scale should these
12 buildings be built. It must be clearly distinguished
between what is nice for Aspen and what is needed for
14 Aspen. I now would like to refer a little to employee
15 housing. There's much discussion regarding various
16 formulas that are being used to determine how many
17 employee housing units the developer must provide.
18 ANDERSON Dick, can we ask you to postpone discussion on employee
19 housing until we are ready to discuss it as a commission?
20 BUTERA Sure. After that I do have an analysis of how many
21 employees we have in the existing hotels.
22 ANDERSON That's going to be a whole 'nother
23 BUTERA Okay. Then I ask you then, just about closing here, we
24 ought to discuss the developers. Because of the enormous
25 impact of this project will have on our community, it is
fair that we citizens know who are the people that are
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making the promises and giving us the assurances that
this project will be built and managed as proposed.
Needless to say, the site has a bad track record in this
area. Mr. Cantrup made many promises over the years, and
we need not discuss the results of those promises. Mr.
Roberts, who was a very nice guy, is a nice guy, had his
own bank in Texas and still couldn't finance the project
and carry out the many promises that he made. Now we
have a new man, Mr. Mohamed Hadid, who is making similar
promises to the community. Perhaps he is capable and
will deliver on all these promises and we will all live
happily ever after. However, in light of the confusion
and past history of this site, we should be skeptical.
This is in no way a personal reflection on Mr. Hadid.
The economics of the hotels in Aspen are terrible. I
know for a fact. There is virtually no hotel that makes
money when capital investment is considered. We have Mr.
Hadid paying $46,000,000 for this site and the Meadows.
If allocations are made for various parts of this
purchase to the other sites, the amount of money paid for
the hotel site per room for this land, in my judgement,
is the highest ever paid in America. We must have
assurances from Mr. Hadid that he has the financing
before any building permits for foundations are issued.
In view of the history of this project, and the enormous
amount of land costs, we can't afford to have a hole dug
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the size of what is proposed without the assurances that
2 the money to put the building on top of that hotel is
3 available. Because of the enormous impact on our
4 community, Mr. Hadid should answer all of these personal
5 questions regarding the financing and the Ritz Carlton
6 contract, such as if the Ritz Carlton contract is the
7 basis for Mr. Hadid's financing of this project, then he
8 should show the appropriate authorities in the city the
9 Ri tz Carl ton contract. I'm told the contract got
10 guarantees of $6,000,000 a year profit. Assuming that
11 the Ritz Carlton can pull off this miracle, the arith-
12 metic does not indicate that $6,000,000 would carry the
amount of debt that's being discussed as the total cost
14 of this project. There's a $46,000,000 deed of trust
15 indebtedness recorded against the property presently in
16 the courthouse. The mortgage spells out that it was due
17 and payable on January 1, 1988. The people who lent this
18 money are called Marfac and from out best information
19 they are a Georgia poultry farmer group. Do they have
20 an interest in Aspen? Is the $46,000,000 in default?
21 If so, are we heading towards the same difficulties this
22 site has seen before. If not, it would be simple for Mr.
23 Hadid to explain to the appropriate parties what the
24 facts are. These and other questions about Mr. Hadid and
25 his intentions must thoroughly be aired so the community
can rest with the confidence that he is on our team. We
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 71
are told by Mr. Roberts that Mr. Hadid spent 48 hours in
2 Aspen totally prior to his making a decision to spend
3 $46,000,000. If this is true, would one consider that
4 this is the normal due diligence by a prudent man prior
5 to investing $46,000,000. Lastly, the PUD that the
6 developer has been using to process this plan can really
7 be considered a shield from our zoning code. I don't
8 think anyone would argue with a hotel being built on this
9 site if it's size, setbacks, height complied with the
10 existing zoning code. It may be interesting for you to
11 note, I think I'm correct Alan Richman, that if we
12 complied with the zoning code and we didn't wrap this
thing with the word PUD, that the hotel would be roughly
14 half as big as it is being proposed. And half as big
15 would make an awful lot of people very happy in this room
16 as well as throughout the community. If the citizens of
17 Aspen could sleep at night knowing that our zoning code
18 is going to be honored and not wrapped with the words
19 like PUD maybe these meetings wouldn't have to go on for
20 weeks and we would all sleep a lot better. The magic of
21 the word PUD somehow gives the public bodies the
22 flexibility of ignoring the existing zoning code. The
23 purpose of the PUD is for our community to give a
24 developer flexibility so that he may design a plan that
25 is an improvement over what the existing zoning would
allow. There are many people who believe that using the
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 72
PUD to make this building this large does the opposite
2 for our community. The GMP approvals that were received
3 by Mr. Roberts four years ago have no relationship to
4 what is being proposed now. Mr. Roberts' plan did not
5 anticipate the continued use of the Continental Inn. Mr.
6 Roberts' architecture, layout and other aspects of the
7 project were totally different than this project.
8 Therefore, the door is open for a total, new review of
9 the subject property and all parties should have a chance
10 to be heard as if it were starting over. Hopefully a new
11 hotel will be built on this site. Hopefully this
12 building will be in scale and in keeping with the history
and present state of what Aspen's architecture and
densities. Hopefully the Ritz Carlton will run the hotel
in a world class manner and all of us will be proud of
the addition to our town. Thank you. I'm very sorry but
there's, and I'll do it later if you like, but there a
report, an economic report that Mr. Perry put out that
says here
Mr. Harvey did
Mr. Harvey did that says this report is designed to
assist the city and the Planning and Zoning commission
and the Council to plan to future capital improvement
programs to the community as a result of having a Ritz
Carlton hotel at the base of the mountain. We find many
errors in this, and I don't need to take your time now
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 73
but I'd like to know if at any time you'd like to have
2 the opposite story of this report.
3 HARVEY Would you be willing to call me tomorrow and go over it
4 BUTERA If you're going to use it as part of your judgement
5 HARVEY It's not part of our submission, Dick
6 BUTERA But it's spread all around the community that this is
7 ANDERSON I think the staff and you and Perry can condense it into
8 something that we can absorb because we have an awful lot
9 to absorb.
10 YURCHENCO It should be public
11 ANDERSON It is public
12 YURCHENKO No I mean the report
HARVEY It is public
14 YURCHENKO The correction too?
15 ANDERSON That's what I'm asking is for the
16 HARVEY There is no correction as far as we're concerned.
17 ANDERSON It's for an analysis to be synthesized with the planning
18 office, the developer and whoever has problems with it
19 so we can see a concise and hopefully unbiased from the
20 staff point of view determination of that. We've been
21 at it for two hours so far. We're not going to spend
22 any more than one additional hour for this phase. Would
23 you please try to limit your comments, I should have said
24 this from the beginning, please try to limit you comments
25 to no more than 3 minutes from this point on.
DOLLE I'm Norma Dolle and I'm a concerned citizen of Aspen.
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 74
I've lived here for 14 years. Maybe I. who we all
2 care about and have been coming here for like 20 years.
3 We're really concerned about what's happening with Aspen,
4 all the glitzy feeling, instead of the funky which is why
5 we've come here. We love the victorians and their
6 consensus is that the mass of this hotel that's going to
7 be built is just going to impact the whole town of Aspen
8 so much that a man I talked to said they won't come back.
9 So I'm really concerned about this. I brought this up
10 at another meeting but as far as I can see, La Jolla,
11 California, where I used to live was a lovely place to
12 live. They put up high rises there and they impact the
whole town with the traffic and everything, it's just
14 gotten really bad. I was in Waikiki last fall and I can
15 see what happened there. I just hope that as the
16 consensus that I'm hearing today is that a lot of us
17 concerned citizens are really worried about the mass of
18 this building. I think we all feel that we need a hotel
19 but not one of this magnitude and we do feel that it's
20 impact will forever, as far as Ilm concerned, will
21 forever, ruin Aspen.
22 ANDERSON Thank you Norma. Jim
23 CURTIS Jim curtis. I also share virtually all of the concerns
24 that have been expressed tonight and I really find it
25 unfortunate that there appears to be no basis or
willingness to discuss the key issues as far as I'm
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 75
concerned, which is the overall size, the scale of the
2 project. I certainly hope and would address to City
3 Council that they would consider those issues because,
4 at least from my point of view, everything else is really
5 secondary to that basic beginning question. Independent
6 of that, from a design point of view, I echo what I heard
7 from the P & Z that I think the least attractive part of
8 the project is what I call the functional public/private
9 open space. To me the open space proposed is essentially
10 all private and really has no public benefits and when
11 I say public benefits, both accessibility to the public
12 and visual relief to the public. And visual to me is
also very important and I use the example of a little
courtyard space at the Hotel Jerome. Clearly the public
may not walk into that space everyday but you can see it
from Main street, you can see it from the sidewalk and
it really creates an openness about the Hotel Jerome and
the Main street facade that this project doesn't have.
So a specific design comment would be just echoing the
functional public/private open space which is really not
proposed as depicted now.
I'm sorry. I can't see everybody.
Graeme Means
Did'nt you speak before?
I just presented a petition.
At least let somebody else speak and we'll come back to
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TYGRE
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 76
you.
2 BREASTED I would just like to say briefly
3 TYGRE Would you identify yourself for the record
4 BREASTED Jim Breasted. As one who has been a member of the
5 planning commission and served several years where you're
6 sitting, I just want to say to you as human beings, I
7 really appreciate, I know how much time you've put into
8 this. I'd just like to repeat the Turkish proverb which
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says no matter how far you've gone on the wrong road,
turn back.
Graeme Means. I'd like to just read a letter. "Dear
Members of P & Z. The building of the proposed Ritz
Carlton hotel will have enormous impacts on the city of
Aspen. I feel strongly that the negative aspects will
far outweigh the positive and I would like to share some
of these concerns with you. Number one, on the' matter
of scale both the project and the building bulk far
surpass anything else in town. This will require
substantial deviations from zoning code which have
governed Aspen I s growth in recent years. These facts
assure that the project will not be able to maintain the
sense of variety and charm that has defined Aspen in the
past. There is a sense of urban scale in the project
that does not fit into town. Number two, the open space
required by the city is practically inaccessible both by
use and visually to the public for whose benefit it is
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 77
intended. The proposed building crowds both the north
2 and east property lines and thus presses its maximum bulk
3 towards the center of town. These gigantic four story
4 facades are hundreds of feet long and shade neighboring
5 streets and buildings far more than any other situation
6 in town. There are no variations in sidewalk width to
7 allow for meeting places and sitting areas which are
8 necessary to give a street scape life and vitality.
9 Number three, the architectural treatment of the facade
10 does not respond to what exists in Aspen. It certainly
11 does not set any new standard which should be emulated
12 in the future. It's mismatch of style remind many of
cheap roadside or theme park development and it has an
14 urban scale not at home in Aspen. It's obvious that the
15 architects have been responding to Ritz Carlton and the
16 developers more than to Aspen and its needs and sen-
17 sitivity. Four, one of the many contentions of the Ritz
18 Carlton is that they intend to fill the hotel during off
19 season with convention business. For a town as busy as
20 ours, the off season fills a very essential need for most
21 local Aspenites and I shudder to imagine a holiday pace
22 all year round. Furthermore, these conventioneers will
23 be very different from out local or present tourist
24 population. They will be coming for their own business
25 interests not for the mountain environment, cultural
events and health and exercise possibilities, which are
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 78
Aspen's best qualities. They will dilute the best of our
2 characteristics. Number five, it is no secret that Aspen
3 is already wrestling with some very real and difficult
4 problems. The obvious ones include transportation,
5 parking, housing and the inaccessibility of ordinary
6 needs and services for locals. From a planning stand-
7 point, it is irresponsible to approve a project which
8 will clearly aggravate all these problems before there
9 is serious progress towards their resolution. I feel
10 very strongly that the proposed hotel threatens to dilute
11 or destroy those qualities of Aspen that make it
12 attractive and special, charm, intellect, dignity, quiet
and surprise are virtues which are easily lost and will
14 prove almost impossible to regain. For those wishing to
15 use Aspen to make money, this hotel may serve that
16 purpose. For the rest, local and visitor alike, it will
17 degrade the quality of our valley (tape) It's architec-
18 ture, planning and fundamental conception insures that
19 it will not fit into the fabric of our community. For
20 these reasons, I believe,
21 PERSON I think we should have the Chairman listen to you while
22 you're reading
23 ANDERSON I'm listening
24 TYGRE Can't we have these letters introduced into the record?
25 MEANS I have one more sentence. For these reasons I believe
that decisions regarding very fundamental issues
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 79
concerning this project need to be reviewed and I hope
2 that they will be.
3 ANDERSON Thank you. Any more public comment. Richie. Could you
4 identify for Jan.
5 COHEN I'm Richie Cohen. I am a concerned citizen. I hear all
6 of these concerns. It is impossible to stand up and in
7 30 seconds or a minute and a half, or 2 minutes reiterate
8 all of the arguments against some of this, for it, that's
9 the job of the developer. We as citizens of Aspen have
10 made our own problem here and it's wonderful to hear all
11 of these architects state these marvelous ideas and these
12 marvelous plans. Where were they when we were creating
J the laws that are working to prevent just what it is that
14 they're trying to get out. Where were these concerned
15 citizens when we had to come up with a concept to try and
16 revive the economy and to bring Aspen back to the first
17 rank as a ski resort. Again, comments have been made
18 that we don't have a full economy, we don't have beds
19 that are full all the time. I for one have, I've come
20 across all kinds of people who won't come here because
21 most of our accommodations are second rate, and no
22 offense to the people of the small lodges, they are in
23 there, they've been in there for quite some time. They
24 like the status quo. They've made their dollars, they've
25 done well, they've served their guests nicely. There's
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 80
getting here because of our accommodations. Now we might
2 try and say that this is a community, and it is. We are
3 fortunate enough to be one of the few resorts in the
4 United states that has been able to achieve a full
5 measure of community life with a single industry. We are
6 a Detroit but we happen to be in the kind of business
7 that still has a great deal of appeal. We were in great
8 risk of losing that. When this hotel initially was
9 conceived and when it was passed, if you go back,
10 suddenly you'll notice that the door to reviving our town
11 opened. We began to see the finishing of a lot of trash
12 that was around. There was suddenly people who would put
J some money into this town to do the Jerome. There were
14 people here who would invest in the finishing of the
15 cantina building. We had some new townhouses built. The
16 town became alive again. Now, it may be glitzy; Some
17 people may say that this is not what we want. Maybe
18 there's a little more concentration on the glitz because
19 it stands out better and people recognize a Don Johnson
20 or a Jack Nicholson or Barbra Streisand but for everyone
21 of them there's 100 other people who are solid, quiet,
22 genuine, real people who come here to enjoy themselves,
23 to make use of this place as a ski resort and as a
24 cultural center. Let's remember, we have one of the 4
25 major cultural centers in the country, right here, in the
L summer time. So we've got people who come here and find
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 81
themselves having to come in and stay in inferior lodging
2 through the summer and still they come but they're not
3 coming back so fast. We don't make it appeal ing to them.
4 We've got a need for conference, not convention, and it's
5 very easy to stretch out and say, hey these are conven-
6 tioneers coming, but they're not. These are conferencing
7 people. These are people of means, these are people who
8 are groups of architects, and groups of doctors and
9 groups of educators who go in groups of up to 3, maybe
10 even 400. That's what we're going for. We're not going
11 for conventioneers. I think the developer has to stop
12 and has to answer all of these things. But I think we're
J all responsible for it. We have stretched this out to
14 a long enough period of time that we can break anybody.
15 But if you go back and see what are they giving us.
16 They're giving us some much needed hotel rooms, replacing
17 a lot of trash that was there in the first place. And
18 we just hurt ourselves by making ourselves look foolish
19 into the world in general because we can't even get our
20 own house in order. Let's, if you're going to stop and
21 redo it, well then say fine, here we go Mr. Developer you
22 put your money in, we will guarantee you that you can get
23 so many more rooms built, but we'll give you the leeway
24 in height, we'll give you the leeway in density. You
25 come up with something more imaginative. Maybe that's
2 the way you've got to go, but in view of the fact that
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 82
we probably won't because nobody up there wants to change
2 these laws, let's try and get this thing through as
3 painlessly as possible. They've got a good project,
4 economically I take exception to some of the questions
5 of values because each one of this whole parcel is worth
6 a ton of money and obviously the people who are planning
7 this, the people who are backing in, the people who are
8 financing it are every bit as qualified as the people
9 sitting in this room. We're small town American. We can
10 say we know the numbers, but we're not the Ritz Carlton
11 chain, we're not the major professional people who look
12 here and say here's how it can be done; it can be done
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ANDERSON
COMPTON
ANDERSON
RADINSKI
within this framework. Let's get it going. Let's give
them some credence, too. Thank you.
Thank you Richie. In the back row.
Richard Compton. I came here to speak up but I find that
most everything I wanted to say has been said and in more
detail than I could have done myself. I think that
Graeme Means stated my concerns as well or better than
I could so I want to give my support to things that he
raised and urged that we really take a look at this in
terms of what we need and not just what's being basically
shoved down our throats by the developer we never saw
before.
Thank you. Any other, in the back row.
I'm David Radinski, I'm a curator and have been an art
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 83
consultant and have been involved with Aspen episodically
since it began after the war and I've been involved in
a lot of things here since the early '70s. I think that
we heard a lot of talk about the importance and the
economic importance. Mr. Cohen made some very important
points, but nobody seems to be talking, when you talk
about one of the 4 major cultural centers in the United
states, the kind of people who come here in the summer
and for cultural events are not going to like this hotel
the way it is. The hotel may be a really valid and
important addition to Aspen, even a necessity as you say,
but aesthetically it leaves so much to be desired in it's
present form. It so little addresses the needs of
individuals that we hear a lot about pedestrians. The
open space is not available the way it is at the Jerome.
The Jerome you can walk in and there it is, like it
always was, in fact, it's better than it was. But we
have a problem here. I think there's nothing wrong with
healthy development; it's good for the community and good
for the people here and pays for the schools and pays for
the hospitals and all of that. But as an important
cultural center and as one of the, I'd say less than 4
in the country, Aspen deserves the very best and it's
image depends on it's having the very best, tasteful,
thoughtful, beautiful and functional.
ANDERSON Thank you. Anybody else that hasn't spoken before.
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 84
Anybody for second shot.
I would like, see the problem with good architects they
try to resolve the conflicting energies that are at work.
There's is no question, I think everyone has wanted to
have a magnificent hotel here in Aspen and they should
have one. Whether the solution lies in making one
tremendous block of a building like that, or fortress,
it's not necessarily the correct one. There are many
ways of solving it. Possibly two buildings would do it,
which are allowed to have a certain amount of play.
There's no reason we all allowed to have the same kitchen
as a matter of fact one restaurant over all of them. I
mean I don't understand it all. Big hotel in big cities,
I mean Switzerland where I've been, they've had many
hotels and they all change, they're all fluid, they're
all alive. This thing of having to be rigidly controlled
like the Bethesda National Hospital, 600 foot of corridor
in order to be ale to take the patient from there to
there bed ridden and there for a major surgery and then
to be taken right back, it's not recreational, it does
not have the lightness, the transparency, the wonderful
thing, the sense of freedom which is characteristic of
Aspen. I think that intuitively everyone feels that and
I would like to see, have it resolved. I believe it
should go back to the architect. I think he has the
abilities. He's been living with this problem long
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 85
enough, I think if he goes down deep into his inner self,
2 he can come out with a good solution in there. But the
3 program has to be changed. It cannot be as huge as it
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ANDERSON
MELVILLE
ANDERSON
MELVILLE
ANDERSON
MELVILLE
I saw some hands back, some hands that hadn't spoken yet.
Could you stand and give your name for the record.
I'm Ralph Melville, I have the Mountain Chalet right next
to the project, actually surrounded on 3 sides by it.
I was a little concerned last week. Last week I spoke,
you know, pretty much in favor of the way the height had
been brought down on it and it didn't seem as large as
the previous proposal. But Welton, one of your remarks
last week was that there should be something bigger on
that corner of Mill and Dean
I said something different and better
but I don't know about a dog and pony show that ybu were
talking about but I came in a little bit late and it
looks like that corner is now higher than it was before
and that kind of concerns me
Only on paper
Dean is only 50 feet across on the right of way there.
It is one of the narrowest streets in Aspen, and I know
we're going to be deprived of sunshine in there. But by
keeping it down to the 4 floors that they had before, I
don't think it would be quite so bad. Having to go up
now to 5 stories on that corner is going to cut a lot of
Planning and Zoning
SARPA
March 15, 1988
87
We would like to make a couple of remarks in closing
2 ANDERSON Okay. Go ahead.
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We'd like to make a couple of remarks. We've obviously
heard a different side of the coin this evening than we
did last week. That's indicative of what we've known for
a long time. There's a strong sentiment on this proj ect.
It goes both ways. We've been aware of it. There was
some information given out this evening and we think some
of it's erroneous.
We'll have a chance to respond to
that, that's not our point to being here this evening.
But there are a couple things I would like to say about
about perspective on the project in general. One, the
community has debated this and it will always be debated
whether it was 2 years ago when it was done or today or
5 years from now.
It's clear that a project of this
scope and of this nature is going to be hotly cbntested
within the community.
We know that.
The debate,
however, by and large has taken place on that facility
previously.
Some months ago when we came into this
process, we asked the City council that as we understand
it has the jurisdiction if you will to determine whether
or not we're starting allover or whether this is an
amendment. So we went through the process. We worked
with the city officials, staff at that point to try to
determine that question up front because it was obviously
important for us to determine how to approach the
Planning and Zoning
March 15, 1988
86
sun away from us, and I don't think the Ritz Carlton is
2
the type of hotel that needs a dog and pony show on the
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corner to get people in there.
I think having a nice
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looking building is what will do it. Thank you
5 ANDERSON Anybody else?
6 MARGIE I'm concerned about
7 ANDERSON Your name for the record
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POOL
Margie Pool, Aztec right up the street. I was a little
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late tonight for the meeting because we had a Beck's beer
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truck parked on Dean street and we couldn't exit from our
11
garage. I'm wondering where all this traffic is going
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to come in, where it's going to idle. We've heard about
trucks parking at Columbine with their motors running all
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night because the drivers are waiting. What's going to
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happen at the hotel. Where are you going to stack these
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many trucks that will service the hotel.
17 ANDERSON We have yet to get to the servicing aspect of it. It's
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somewhere further down the list of literally dozens of
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more items to cover.
20 POOL I think it's going to be a big problem with traffic
21 ANDERSON We thank you for your concern and it will be noted at the
22
appropriate time. Any other public comment? If not,
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I'll both the public hearings both of them and continue
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say.
HARVEY
Alan, What about the rezoning.
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SARPA We would like to make a couple of remarks in closing
ANDERSON Okay. Go ahead.
SARPA
We'd like to make a couple of remarks. We've obviously
heard a different side of the coin this evening than we
did last week. That's indicative of what we've known for
a long time. There's a strong sentiment on this proj ect.
It goes both ways. We've been aware of it. There was
some information given out this evening and we think some
of it's erroneous. We'll have a chance to respond to
that, that's not our point to being here this evening.
But there are a couple things I would like to say about
about perspective on the project in general. One, the
community has debated this and it will always be debated
whether it was 2 years ago when it was done or today or
5 years from now. It's clear that a proj ect of this
scope and of this nature is going to be hotly ccontested
within the community. We know that. The debate,
however, by and large has taken place on that facility
previously. Some months ago when we came into this
process, we asked the City Council that as we understand
it has the jurisdiction if you will to determine whether
or not we're starting allover or whether this is an
amendment. So we went through the process. We worked
with the city officials, staff at that point to try to
determine that question up front because it was obviously
important for us to determine how to approach the
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 88
project. The staff recommended, and the Council voted,
that this was not a fundamental change from the previous-
ly approved project. They took that vote. We have
relied on that vote and have been busy working trying to
show what we mean by our changes to this. We'll have
obviously more opportunity to show why we think it is not
a fundamental change from the previous one. I can tell
you from day one it was our mandate to anybody that
worked on this project to be extremely careful not to
change the basic aspects of the projects, the FAR, the
height, the footprint, the things that offered the most
debate, the most concern, have been preserved or
enhanced. We didn't mind lowering the building but we
certainly weren't going to make it any taller. Our whole
objective was to keep this within the boundaries of that
previous, lengthy debate that the community had. There
are two other things that are important here, I think.
strong opinion tonight from the architectural community.
There are probably, for sure there are good ideas in this
room and within the architectural community on how to
make this building do the same thing we want it to do,
and that is when it is finished can this building look
like and feel like something that everybody that's been
here in Aspen a lot longer than we have be proud of.
Does it feel like it's been here a long time, that's what
we want when it's finished. We'd like that building to
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 89
be up and have the impression or feel, if you will, that
2 it's been a part of Aspen for a long time. We don't want
3 something that somebody says, gee where'd that new thing
4 come from. Now how do you get there is a whole different
5 ball game. One of the things we hadn't anticipated was
6 this strong reaction from, if you will, the expert design
7 and architectural community. We'd like to propose
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we've had a lot of this debate. We can probably improve
14 on this. Let's get on with it. I know for sure there's
15 a strong sentiment in the community to that end because
16 we spent a lot of time talking to people here.' This is
17 not our first interaction with everybody. We're hearing
18 the other side very clearly tonight. But one of the
19 things we'd like to do in order to help us go forward is
20 to form a small group, not a big group, but a small group
21 of architects, Aspen architects, who've been here a long
22 time, understand a lot of the subtleties that are
23 involved in this process so that we can get a little
24 interaction with them and hopefully save a lot of time
25 before you all. We've talked, for instance, to Larry
Yaw. Larry has very much been discussed, directly and
something that can address that, that will help us go
forward because our opinion in all this is how does this
project go forward. We've heard some strong opinions
tonight on it. Frankly we heard some strong opinions
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 90
indirectly, because he was very much involved, he was
2 responsible for what's on the wall over there. Larry has
3 agreed to consider being on such a group. We pick a few
4 others, we've talked to Fritz Benedict. Another guy that
5 we know, we've talked a lot to, he's been around a long
6 time, he understands architecture here. He's another guy
7 who we would like to have on there. We'd like to have
8 a city representative. If they want to put Bill Poss
9 back on because he's worked on it, fine. we'll take 4 or
10 5 people to put on this committee. What's the committee
11 for? In our opinion just to get a system, a channel to
12 get some of this architecture information back to us.
It is not for us to redesign this hotel from the ground
14 up. We can't do that. We simply can't do that given the
15 way we came into the project, given the history of the
16 proj ect. Some people have represented that we're
17 threatening here tonight about doing something, we're
18 not threatening anything. We'd like very much to work
19 through an improved design. We have, however, real time
20 constraints on this project, real time, they're not made
21 up. If anybody, take the time, sit down talk to the city
22 attorney if you want. Talk to us, talk to the city
23 planner, you'll find there are real time frames involved
24 in this process. We're confident that within the
25 recommended time frame we have, we can get the ap-
propriate feedback from the community, we can make
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 91
adjustments to this design that we're talking about
2 tonight, and we can build this hotel in the time frames
3 that we're trying to accomplish. We think that can be
4 done. If we're proven wrong, and it's not a threat, we
5 as a company that bought an existing property with
6 existing zoning on it and existing rights would naturally
7 have to go forward and exercise those rights. It would
8 be absolutely financially, and in every other way,
9 ludicrous for us just to let those lapse and forget it,
10 just take a piece of empty ground and then go rezone it.
11 We can't do that. It's not a threat, it's just a realty.
12 I'm saying we would have to, of course, go back to the
old design, bukld the old design. I'm not trying to be
14 funny about it. We've discussed it at length. That's
15 just the reality situation. So what I hope comes out of
16 all this, we can form this group, we can obviously look
17 to the P & Z for additional scheduling help from your
18 part because the schedule that we have been functioning
19 on, meeting once a week for maybe 2 or 3 weeks and then
20 finishing this and then going on, doesn't appear to be
21 in the cards
22 HARVEY We're still on the first item
23 SARPA We're still on the first item, so we have certainly some
24 discussion to do. But that's an overall view of how we
25 approach this whole project. Thank you.
ANDERSON Alan?
Planning and Zoning
March 15, 1988
92
RICHMAN
Now I'm waiting to hear from the Commission
2 COLOMBO I think we need to get some things cleared up.
3 ANDERSON Okay
4 HARVEY You tired Welton?
5 ANDERSON Weren't you in this chair 3 years ago, 4 years ago?
6
HARVEY
I was. I'm glad you're there now.
7 ANDERSON There's several items we can proceed to including site
8
planning and rezoning of the parcel of property that the
Blue Spruce used to occupy. How does the Commission want
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COLOMBO
to proceed? Jim.
At this point, I think we've got to get some things
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cleared up. I think we've got to make from our attorney,
I want to make sure that we're on the right track, that
14
we are doing the correct procedure.
I believe, I want
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to know that we're in a good legal position, what we're
16
doing. Dick has brought up some questions that I think
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do need to be answered and resolved.
If they aren't
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answered and resolved at this time, they are going to
linger in the community and we're not going to know
whether we're on the right track or not.
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21 ANDERSON It was before you came in, that Dick Butera had mentioned
22
that the wording of whatever section it is in the code
23
concerning extensions to PUD agreements mentioned
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extension singular
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TAD DUNE
I know those arguments and you're advised to presume that
,,,,..,,,.,,,..
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you're operating legally.
I'll respond to whatever
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 93
arguments are made. I don't think you should start to
2 concern yourselves with legal arguments that are made.
3 We wouldn't be here if we didn't think you are operating
4 legally.
5 COLOMBO I have a couple of other concerns. Another one is
6 judging from all this I want to make sure that we are on
7 the right track as far as, we're operating at the right
8 level. Obviously we are not an architecture review board
9 and that's probably one of the biggest crises going on
10 here. I want to make sure that we are operating within
11 our jurisdiction and we are operating correctly in
12 approaching, in our comments. Welton and I have been
holding back considerably about what we want to say about
it architecturally. We've been doing that because of
that fact that we are not an architectural review board
You've got immense authority in both the planned unit
development section of the code and the growth management
section of the code to be dealing with architecture and
site design. I never would have brought thoses issues
up in my memorandum if I didn't think that the Commission
had every authority whatsoever to be reviewing the
architecture in detail. As Paul suggested to me, you've
got an approved development of record. If you find this
inappropriate, if you find this wrong, you can deny it.
You don't have to approve a change in architecture under
the planned unit development amendment regulations or
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Planning and Zoning
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March 15, 1988
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under the growth management plan amendment regulations.
They both are explicit. You've got to find these changes
appropriate.
If they're inappropriate, you've got an
approval of record. So you're in a very very different
circumstance here than when you're seeing something for
the first time.
You have an approved plan.
We're
talking about is this plan an improvement upon what was
there before or isn't it.
If it's not an improvement,
you have no requirement to say yes.
But certainly you
have architectural review. I can quote you the sections
11 of the PUD if you need it, but architecture and site
12 design are why PUD are applied to certain sites.
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PEYTON
RICHMAN
HARVEY
RICHMAN
PEYTON
TAD DUNE
I have a clarification. I guess what I don't understand
is are we being asked just to say yes, this is an
improvement, b is an improvement over a. Or arE! we being
asked to evaluate it with the same kind of standards that
we would use to evaluate a new development?
You are in an amendment process here
So it is b and a
It's not a conceptual PUD process
So what I'm saying is it's only an either or situation
we're in.
You're dealing with a project in a PUD application that
has been approved, and you should determine whether or
not this amendment is reasonable and necessary in light
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 95
of what has already been approved and debated. You're
2 not starting from scratch. You're not reevaluating this
3 project because the approval for that is already in place
4 and of record. The developer is suggesting that this is
5 an improvement over that.
6 COLOMBO So the concerns such as overall size, break up of the
7 building, footprint of the building, are things that we
8 really can't deal with
9 TADDUNE They have been decided and have been confirmed in a
10 written PUD agreement, executed by the city Council.
11 RICHMAN We suggested to you last week that the reason our memo
12 does not speak to those fundamental issues is because of
that approval and because of the direction that was taken
14 last fall, not that the questions that are being asked
15 here tonight are inappropriate questions but they are
16 difficult to bring into the regulatory scheme that we're
17 in right now.
18 COLOMBO I think that needs to be cleared up in the community as
19 well
20 RICHMAN I tried to make it real clear last week. We have
21 different people here tonight that didn't hear those
22 comments last week.
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I think you phrased it correctly last week when you said
it was a given that we've got this hotel. I'm sorry
Welton
ANDERSON Speak, go ahead.
HERRON
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HERRON I think that's how you addressed it last week, and I
think that's important because that's how we looked at
it, that it was a given that there's this big structure
on that site, and we weren't getting into the question
of whether that big structure should be there
The way I suggested was that there were certain basic
project parameters that were identified in the PUD
agreement, up to 300 rooms, up to X square footage, a
certain number of parking spaces, a certain building
footprint, a certain massing, and that those parameters
were being respected by the development, that there were
significant changes that were the subject of our comments
and that were the subject of your comments last week and
tonight but that we weren't questioning is this the
appropriate place for the guest drop off, should the
front be moved back and the open space at a different
point in the project. Those decisions were made back in
1983, 1984, quite frankly before I even became part of
the approval.
There's a long history
Mari
The decision that this is an amendment, though, was not
a decision that the Commission made.
RICHMAN
HARVEY
ANDERSON
PEYTON
RICHMAN
COLOMBO
TADDUNE
That's correct
Nor do we have the ability to change that
It's actually made by the applicant. The applicant
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 97
decides whether or not to apply for an amendment or a new
project.
It's why our submission follows so many of the guidelines
of the prior approval in terms of footprint and massing
and the way it's an unbalanced U and so many of these
things because we, the owner of the property is not in
a position to endanger the approvals by saying, okay,
let's go back to ground zero because of the time frame
to construct, when you have this much money invested
everyday you hold it it becomes more and more of a burden
and that's one of the reasons it's not necessarily any
one's fault, but it's one of the reason so many people
have slid under in this project is simply the amount of
14 time they've had to carry the property, so it was our
15 submission as an amendment, and it was because
16 PEYTON Isn't there a decision made in your office or somewhere
17 whether it is in fact an amendment
18 COLOMBO City Council already voted on it. We don't have the
19 ability to change that
20 RICHMAN No. But you do have the ability, as I suggest under PUD
21 amendment and GMP amendment procedure is to say,
22 appropriate inappropriate. We don't consider an
23 amendment, we do consider an amendment, out of the realm
24 of what the code would allow us to do or within the realm
25 of what the code would allow us to do. The applicant
has, as Paul suggested, made the decision to come forward
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 98
under the amendment procedure. You have to decide if you
2 want to approve it or not.
3 HARVEY And we have to do that because as of April 15th we have
4 to have a building permit of one form or another
5 COLOMBO And the facts are if we don't work out something together
6 here collectively, the facts of life are this applicant's
7 going to build that.
8 HUGHES Exactly
9 TADDUNE The facts are that your rules and regulations require
10 that it be built, and the agreement requires that it be
11 built because if it's not built then the development
12 rights will be lost
COLOMBO So outside of a lot of
14 TADDUNE In this case it has been extended apparently on the
15 assumption that the planning concerns could be mutually
16 addressed and the project could be improved beyond what
17 was originally approved.
18 COLOMBO So we're in a position here that although sentiments may
19 be in agreement with a lot of community rhetoric, we
20 really don't have the freedom to take some of those
21 actions. We really have something to do here and it has
22 to get done.
23 TADDUNE You have the freedom to suggest to the developer that the
24 end result would be better based on the suggestions that
25 have been made by the community. And if the developer
agrees with that, then perhaps through moral suasion you
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 99
would have a better project. But in terms of what you're
authority is, this has already been approved and there
are agreements in place, and this is something that
they're suggesting to you is an improvement.
HARVEY And it's something that our operator is suggesting is an
improvement from the standpoint of will they want to run
it.
ANDERSON
HUNT
Other comments? Roger
It's getting close to the end. I want to get into the
nitty gritty. The way I look at this project is the way
it was presented to us by the planning department and
affirmed by Paul here, that basically there are certain
things that have been approved. We're looking at
basically a change in envelope, is the way I look at it,
and we can get into very subjective architectural
viewpoints in that process, and I have to look at it, is
this an acceptable architectural envelope from what I
think is the community point of view, compared to the
previous one we have, and I have to say, yes, there has
to be some, you know, minor things addressed but
basically I find that unlike a lot of opinionated
architects I can find that acceptable as architectural
design because I don't design any architecture so I don I t
have any vested interest in whether another, my question
is whether it's appropriate to the community or not. And
as far as I'm concerned, the Hotel Jerome or the Wheeler
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 100
Opera House in effect given that period of time tried to
2 somewhat emulate this type of architecture so I don't
3 mind seeing somewhat this kind of architecture in this
4 spot. So I want to carryon with the nitty gritty here
5 and let's make this project work.
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TYGRE
ANDERSON
TYGRE
Jasmine.
I agree wholeheartedly with Roger. Interestingly enough,
the comments that I've heard from people that I've spoke
to, anybody who's not a professional architect or design
think this is really nice and they like this. They say,
you know, this looks like a hotel for rich people to come
to. By golly, that's what it is.
That's going to be on the front cover of the Dailv News
tomorrow.
I have standards, too, just because I'm not an architect
that doesn't mean I'm an aesthetic illiterate and I like
a certain degree of what I think is honesty in a
building. I like buildings that look like what they are
and I like buildings that don't pretend to be Marie
Antoinette's boudoir when they are really a filling
service station and I think this, to me, looks like a
hotel. If I were coming to Aspen for the first time and
I was paying a very high price for a hotel room and my
taxi driver drove me up to something like this, I'd say
oh yes, fine, this is what I expected. I think these
kind of expectations are entirely appropriate and I do
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 lOI
think that some improvements have been made by the
2 developers. I think that further improvements or
3 refinements could possibly be made but basically I'm with
4 Roger. I'd like to see us get into things I think are
5 much more pressing concerns for the community in terms
6 of other impacts, which we do have a right to discuss
7 than architectural changes.
8 ANDERSON David? I'm skipping around
9 WHITE We've got an approved plan, and I'm kind of the feeling
10 of let's see if something can happen with this approved
11 plan. Personally I don't like this one that's been
12 approved. But that wasn't finalized by me. It was
finalized by Council. What we finalize here is going to
14 go to Council and be changed by Council. They've always
l5 done it before, they probably will again. I don't mind
16 this architecture. As I said before, I'll 'probably
l7 mention a heresy but I wouldn't mind if we gave them a
l8 little bit more height in one part of a building for a
19 little bit less height in another and didn't get what I
20 perceive of as a 42 foot height 300 foot, you know, on
21 all 4 sides
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RICHMAN
WHITE
It's not heresy.
You know, I think we need to change that. I mentioned
it last week. More specifically, if we went to 55 in
some places and we wnet 25 in some others, that would be
great. If we took some of the corners and didn't make
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 l02
it 62 foot high but instead pulled it out this way and
2 make it a little big bigger, those would be great. You
3 guys have the ability to bring us those things and
4 hopefully maybe you can. I don't know. I do not like
5 the fact that process has come to a point where, take
6 this or take this. I don't like that but that's nothing
7 that I can really change. The PUD is to improve on the
8 existing what is ever there. I think we have in some
9 ways, I don't in others. I f we could move the front
10 facade on Dean street back 20 more feet or 30 more feet,
II I would think that would be great. We don't have any
12 open space at all for the community. It is all for the
hotel. It's great for the hotel guests but it's not
14 doing anything for the community, it's not any benefit
15 for the community and we're not using the PUD effect-
16 ively. Scale of Aspen, you know, with all the stuff
l7 that's being going recently, I don't know what the scale
18 of Aspen is. We've got a lot of New York style buildings
19 or Los Angeles style uildings in Aspen, which I per-
20 sonally don't like, but then I'm not the architectural
21 review board, thank God, maybe we don't have one. I
22 think we should try to move on with this and be very
23 specific and put an agenda down for the meetings and let
24 us all know what we're going to talk about so we know a
25 little bit more. I think we've wasted some time at this
meeting by not hitting on the points that we need to
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 103
really discuss and try to move on those and I think maybe
2 that takes some of our work along with the planning
3 department but I think this is an improvement over what
4 we have already and I'd like to move on.
5 ANDERSON Mari?
6 PEYTON Well, I think being asked to compare this, plan B to plan
7 A is putting us in a ridiculous situation because plan
8 A dealt with two sites, this deals with only one. There
9 are things that made the project a little bit more
10 palatable to the community when we had two sites we were
II dealing with, one of those sites including a great deal
12 of publicly available open space, the ice rink, the
plaza, the plaza in front of the entrance, the front
l4 facade of the grand entrance of the other hotel was much
15 lower than this one. It was on a different site so I
16 don't like being asked to compare just a part of an
17 approval to an entire approval and I think that's making
18 things apples and oranges here. Pardon?
19 ANDERSON From the historical point of view, they split their
20 application some time during the process and amended it
21 to only include this site with the other site happening
22 no sooner than 5 years subsequent to the completion of
23 this. So we dealt with this as a site specific with no
24 plans in the immediate future for the
25 RICHMAN Recognize there is what is called a phase one approval
for that site which includes the park, which sooner or
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 104
later, I've seen the drawings myself and I know you're
2 going to see, you'll probably see them tonight,
3 HARVEY That was under site plan
4 RICHMAN that park in the area that is now the parking lot for the
5 continental is a requirement for the certificate of
6 occupancy ofr this project is not being withdrawn as a
7 commitment, is a commitment in other words, associated
8 with this development. You just haven't seen it yet, but
9 there is nothing about it that has been taken away.
10 TADDUNE That has been a repeated concern from the city side
11 RICHMAN So you still have that coming
12 PEYTON How come we haven't seen it yet?
HARVEY We haven't gotten to site planning
14 RICHMAN There was no amendments presented to me. The park on the
l5 plan that I received, the park was the park, there were
16 no changes requested to it. They are now showing some
l7 design changes but it's a basic parameter of a park on
18 that site that's going to happen if this is approved or
19 if this isn't approved. Either way, you're going to see
20 that park. I've only presented the changes to you. I
21 haven't presented things that aen't being changed.
22 PEYTON I just wanted to say as far as architectural style of
23 being compatible with the neighborhood, I don't think
24 this is a style which is compatible with the neighbor-
25 hood, which is the city, which is in the mountains and
it's the Rocky Mountain west a total grandiose style as
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 l05
opposed to a style which welcomes human interaction on
2 a pedestrian level, and, that's it.
3 ANDERSON Jim?
4 COLOMBO Well, with clarification of what our abilities are in
5 review, because of that I've been holding back on
6 architectural statements on this but I'm going to make
7 just a general architectural and one is that I don't feel
8 it's compatible with the community. I do not like the
9 style. I'm going to be a minority on this board in that
lO opinion so I'm going to have to work with you on what you
II do present because the majority on this board is giving
12 you an okay. But I have grave problems with the roof
line, I have grave problems with the castleization of
14 open space for inner-purpose uses and not for any type
l5 of community use. I have real problems with the cutesy
16 balcony treatments and the pedestrian relation, the
l7 scale. I think the methods of breaking up have been
l8 repetition of blocks of styles, that has been the way the
19 building has been broken up by doing a rowhouse type of
20 segments. The projections along the elevations which is
21 given on Mill street are less that creative and really
22 without a treatment to the elevated walkway, really give
23 real relief to the pedestrians. I want to see, it sounds
24 like nobody else wants it, but I cannot see going ahead
25 with a project this large without a completed, full scale
model, inside the courtyard, outside the courtyard, the
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 106
streets and the relationship to the surrounding areas.
2 I just can't see going ahead without that. That's been
3 a comment on the board here. I'll probably be a minority
4 and you probably won't have to do it
5 HARVEY Jim, can you give us some more specific direction. The
6 gist of your comments are basically I don't like this and
7 this (tape)
8 COLOMBO The steepness of it is really not articulated enough.
9 It is much too steep. It does not give enough relief
lO from each facia. I think that the iron wroughting along
11 the top is even lends more to that problem. I think that
12 the window line is not compatible with the community
HARVEY What do you mean window well
14 COLOMBO Well, these windows in front I have a problem with, you
15 know, in general I told you I have a problem with the
16 style, so I don't want to get too far into it because I'm
17 not in the majority
18 ANDERSON minority.
19 COLOMBO minority. These windows, I think I told you are are
20 inappropriate to the Aspen area. I think that these
21 balconies are much too cutesy. I want to work with you
22 and obviously we're going to have to get this thing
23 through because I would much rather see an approved
24 project here than there, but I think that the method of
25 separation is not adequate on Mill street. I think we
have to have more relief to that facia. I think that the
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Planning and Zoning
March 15, 1988
107
walkway, what it does, this walkway puts people, it
2
relieves them from the face of the building, and when it
3
relieves them from the face of the buiilding, it gives
4
them a pit on one side and it gives them traffic on the
5
other side. I think there has to be a way in which you
6
can introduce a parkway in there, open space in there,
7
something so that there is something in direct contact
8
activity-wise with pedestrians
9 ANDERSON Depends on what's going on in the bedroom.
10 COLOMBO Depends on what's going on in the bedroom if it's not too
11
far away.
Real specifically, I'd like to see some
12
interaction, I can't really tell what's going on with the
open space right now. That's why I said I'd like to see
14
a model. I can't see what the public can't see, what
l5
they can see, how it interacts with the streets, how it
interacts with pedestrian activity, You know,' until I
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can actually see that, and I'm not going to be able to
18
see it unless it's built to a full model and shows me
19
what I can see, will I be able to tell whether or not
20
this makes any sense. I do have a problem with the whole
21
concept or philosophy of encapsulating this open space
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for preferred, for internal use, you know, there is
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limited open space for external use for the community and
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the majority of it is internal.
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HARVEY
That's the function of the prior approval
-,,~,"'-.
COLOMBO
I think there may be ways that it can be helped, with
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Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988
transparency, and
HARVEY
COLOMBO
HARVEY
COLOMBO
HARVEY
COLOMBO
HARVEY
ANDERSON
HARVEY
ANDERSON
HARVEY
SARPA
ANDERSON
COLOMBO
108
Okay
The shade study, I think is extremely important
We're going to do that
to see what's going on, and then my biggest thing is just
for a full completed model so everybody can see what's
going on in, you know, instead of hidden areas. I'd like
to see it put in perspective with cars and people.
How long does it take to do that
You go down to the shop, what is it over here, by the
blue printers, buy some cars
I don't say how long does it take to put the cars next
to the building
Is there validity to Dick's comment that there's a model
in the works somewhere?
There was a model in the works from the Hotel Jerome to
Ruthie's restaurant and my understanding is it's
somewhere in Texas right now. I do not know the status
of it. It was originally, you know, we heard about it
Is that from several different applicants ago?
No I don't know
One ago
Quite recently.
My final comment is that you made a statement that you
wanted something that wasn't just a copy of Victorian
styles, that wasn't just a neo-Victorian or a pseudo-
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 109
Victorian style, but you wanted something that was going
2 to last in the community and influence the community and
3 grow with this community. I think the concept there is
4 good, but why is it more valid to take a style that is
5 not inherent to this area and bring that style and make
6 it a neo-style or a pseudo-style here. This is as much
7 a pseudo-style for New Orleans, Boston, a hundred places,
8 if it were built there as victorians would be here. So
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HERRON
ANDERSON
HERRON
I don't know why it's more appropriate to take something
else and replicate it here than it would be to take a
victorian. I'm not endorsing replication of Victorians
but I'm saying the philosophy of the costs of where the
design came from, it doesn't make any sense to me.
Mickey
My only comment is back to where I was I guess last week
as opposed to the prior approved project, I still like
this project. I'm not an architect, and obviously the
architects don't like it. What I really would like to
see if specifically what they don't like and how they
would like to improve it. The developer has made that
offer and I think that that's the kind of input that Dick
Butera referred to the fact that we only have 2 ar-
chi tects here and 5 dummies or 6 dummies that aren't
architects
He's not talking about lawyers
The only way we're going to get any input that we can
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Planning and Zoning
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HARVEY
March 15, 1988
110
consider is if the architects tell us what there should
be. I don't know what there should be. To me it looks
nice.
We'll be more than happy to set up a committee with them
I'd like to hear something positive
I hesitate to think of what it might create because
design by committee is just exactly that but we'll damn
well try it
It reminds me of the saying that there's no statues in
the park to a committee.
I'd like to hear something
5
HERRON
positive not something negative
Absolutely. We'll do it.
ANDERSON Rounding out the commission. Most of my criticisms of
".
the project were noted last week. I want to reiterate
that although when I saw the first renderings and I saw
the style as being more appropriate to the Champs Elysee
or Central Park South, not necessarily Central Park West,
Get that straight
20
19 ANDERSON The Wheeler Opera House is not Victorian style. It's got
a little bit of neo-classic Adamesque in the garlands and
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HERRON
HARVEY
HARVEY
wreaths in the pediment, it's got some Richardson
Romanesque in the rusticated arches, it's got, you know
a variety of different eclectic influences. The Jerome
hotel is not Victorian either. It's got some classical
proportions and classical detailing.
It doesn't fit
comfortably into any discreet Victorian category, in fact
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 111
the Sardy house is the only true victorian brick
2 building, although albeit on a residential scale, that
3 I can really point out as being an example of victorian
4 architecture that was built 100 years ago. And by God
5 if we had the citizen input 100 years ago that we have
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HARVEY
ANDERSON
HARVEY
ANDERSON
HARVEY
ANDERSON
HARVEY
now
The Wheeler wouldn't be there and neither would the
Jerome
Absolutely. The community was so glad to see Jerome B.
Wheeler come in here and take his profits out of Macy's
and put them into to Aspen to thank the community for all
the silver he pulled out of the mountain
About broke even on that whole trade
No, he went bankrupt later, he went bankrupt after he
build it, unlike recent history. The point that you made
about the internalizing of the open space, I don't think
is really a valid criticism given the fact that if they
un-internalize that space they would have essentially a
different footprint and a different project and I view
this, with the exception of the architecture which I'm
not crazy about, as being essentially the same project
but improved upon in a lot of respects. So I guess we
can in our next meeting go forward.
I certainly hope so.
Well, we got about that far tonight.
We did?
Planning and Zoning March 15, 1988 112
ANDERSON Yes
2 HARVEY Okay. Well one of the problems that I feel is just the
3 frustrations that Mari was going through is that we're
4 presenting this piecemeal and you're not getting the full
5 concept of how the whole thing flows
6 RICHMAN The next time we meet we'll move into site planning,
7 issues, growth management scoring.
8 ANDERSON Meeting's adjourned.
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