Today, Erik Cavarra features an article about the proposed changes for Buttermilk.
Two-year redevelopment includes new children’s center
The Aspen Skiing Co. has broken ground on a major redevelopment of the Buttermilk Ski Area’s base area, a two-year project that includes a new, $10 million children’s center and changes to the parking lot.
Various governmental entities have signed off on most parts of the SkiCo’s building permit application, including Pitkin County green-lighting the zoning section on Tuesday, said Tony Popish, county plans examiner.
The Pitkin County commissioners last year approved the SkiCo’s master plan for Buttermilk, and the U.S. Forest Service several years ago also accepted the plan.
Increased snowmaking capacity and a new 8,690-square-foot skier services building are also part of the project, according to planning documents submitted to the county.
“It’s a big project,” SkiCo spokesman Jeff Hanle said last week.
He likened the new children’s center to the Treehouse at the Snowmass Ski Area, a multilevel building that offers child care, ski school programs and rentals under one roof.
“It will be a state-of-the-art center,” he said.
The new 7,377-square-foot structure will be a permanent replacement for the Powder Pandas children’s center, which had been housed in modular trailers that have since been relocated.
“Generations of children have learned to ski or snowboard at Buttermilk, and we want to ensure that future generations also have this opportunity,” the SkiCo’s application says.
Chad Abraham/Aspen Daily News
Bumps, the base area restaurant, will be expanded by about 2,300 square feet over two floors and have an interior remodel, while the new skier services building will consolidate lift ticket sales, restroom and lockers, ski rental and retail, and ski school guest services.
The skier service building will replace a structure known simply as the “Green Building,” which the SkiCo says has a poor appearance unsuited for “a world-class ski area.”
Buttermilk, which was developed by Friedl Pfeifer and Art Pfister in the 1950s, sees about 161,000 skiers and boarders annually, though the yearly average has slipped of late, the SkiCo application says. It also hosts the ESPN X Games, and is known for its intermediate and beginner terrain, and halfpipe and terrain park.
Compared to the SkiCo’s other three ski areas, “relatively few changes have occurred to the Buttermilk structures since the 1986 Ski Area Master Plan was adopted, and some structures are original to the opening of the ski mountain in 1958,” the application says.
Read Full Article: http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/162431
Leave a Reply