Terrific column out of Johnny today. Up on the Aspen Daily News.
There are so many related stories to Johnny Boyd's point today that should be brought up in our aggregate of news this morning. My goodness, they run the gamut from shady developments and suspect patterns of lending and cronyism between multiple developments to accusations of fraud, unjust enrichment, tort interference and even swoop those big money accusations on over into the local upvalley drug culture war.
Lordy lordy, says, 'SandBox Nanny'. What tangled webs are woven out there.
Here's to the voice of the common man. The little guy. Let Freedom ring.
Let's just toss up some links to public commentary on a few of the key related:
http://sandboxcommentators.blogspot.com/2012/03/sandboxblogs-snowmass-sun-skico-accused.html
http://sandboxcommentators.blogspot.com/2012/02/sandbox-comments-glenwood-springs-post_21.html
http://sandboxcommentators.blogspot.com/2012/03/sandboxblogs-aspen-daily-news-pitkin.html
http://sandboxcommentators.blogspot.com/2011/05/sandbox-comments-vail-daily-cordillera.html
http://sandboxcommentators.blogspot.com/2011/12/sandbox-comments-eagle-county-times_12.html
Johnny Boyd:
"The German banks recently filed to lower the value of the property by $94 million. That certainly bodes well for everyone’s real estate prices. The people that have already bought into the Base Village want out badly enough to accuse the original developers of defrauding them. If these folks win this case, no condos will ever sell in the Base Village until this has all been forgotten in about 100 years. Believe me, the Aspen Skiing Co. and Intrawest didn’t build those structures to stand for 100 years.
Base Village was approved in a cloud of negativity with allegations of voter fraud perpetrated by people with interests in seeing their real estate values climb during the real estate bubble, and it is ending up even more negative. The ugliness of the entire project isn’t limited to its cookie-cutter appearance.
On the bright side, the original developers of the Base Village, SkiCo and Intrawest, are being sued for alleged fraud by misrepresenting the size of the individual condominium units. This lawsuit is allowing local billionaire and SkiCo owner, James S. Crown, to fulfill his promise to the community that he would be here for “the long haul.” It’s fortunate that the suffering that the residents of Snowmass have been through can be shared by so many that have been so complicit in making the Base Village what it is. Base Village just keeps on giving — like standing under a tree full of pigeons.
As its construction benchmarks are surpassed and no progress is made on its completion, its approvals disappear. No one in town government can speak of these deadlines and what comes after for fear of reprisal in the form of lawsuits. Planning for the future isn’t allowed if it means that those plans would hurt the value of the property. The truth hurts. But even more interesting is the idea that a developer willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a huge project can’t figure that out for himself.
The writing is on the wall. No banks are loaning money for small but expensive condos. The market is gone. If the German banks that are currently sitting on their hands were smart, they would be talking with the town about the future right now.
The only possible solution, at least in the short-term, is for the real estate in the Base Village to go high-end. Toss out the idea of constructing 1,000-square-foot condos and reprise the idea of 5,000-square-foot super-luxury condominiums. Snowmass, if it ever wants to see the blight removed from the center of town, will have to approve the construction of units that only the uber-rich, Mercedes Benz crowd can afford — the type of people that write checks for their toys, no financing needed...." (Read more? Click title)
"Unapologetically pursuing and tracking patterns within the news others make since 2010."
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