Article by Madeleine Osberger, Aspen Times: The sale of the Snowmass Center, which houses Clark’s Market and the U.S. Post Office in Snowmass Village, is due to close on March 31, according to Jordan Sarick, the principal of Eastwood Snowmass Investors LLC, which is buying the 37-year-old property from Related Colorado.
The 4.26-acre shopping center along Brush Creek Road and some adjacent parcels which are connected to the center and run up the hillside, are also part of the sale. The purchase price has not been disclosed.
Eastwood put the property under contract last fall and told tenants at the time their existing leases would be honored. Snowmass Center’s anchor tenant, Clark’s Market, in 2014 underwent a $2 million remodel on its 14,000-square-foot grocery store space and the contiguous Sundance Liquor & Gifts. Sundance, which was one of the shopping center’s original tenants when it opened in 1979, moved to a different location in the building.
Sarick has not announced any plans for redevelopment of the center and has said he will consider local opinions about what this resident-serving node most needs.
Eastwood Snowmass LLC is an affiliate of Eastwood Developments, the majority owner of the commercial real estate in the Aspen Highlands base. When Sarick and Eastwood Developments, which also has an office in Toronto, purchased the majority of the Highlands base assets in 2007, it was only 60 percent occupied. By 2013, it was 100 percent full with a mix of commercial and office tenants.
“More tenants helps everybody,” Sarick has said about both Highlands and his future acquisition.
Sarick also said his personal observation has been that people want to gather in the Snowmass Center for more “dwell time” but lack a place to do so. That is among Sarick’s operational goals for the building.
Related Colorado vice president Craig Monzio recently confirmed that the sale was forthcoming.
“We are working with the purchaser towards a closing early spring,” said Monzio.
The transfer of the Snowmass Center ownership continues Related’s shedding of local assets. It started with last fall’s sale of non-Base Village property management contracts to First Choice Properties.
The circa-1967 Snowmass Mall, that Related owns through its Snowmass Holding Company LLC, is also on the sales block. Real estate advisory firm Newmark Grubb Knight Frank this winter took sealed bids for the majority of the mall property that is controlled by Related.
A deal to sell Related’s Base Village interests to East West Properties in December fell apart, but there has recently been speculation that the Vail-area developer is interested in returning to the negotiating table with Related.
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