The Aspen City Council formally approved Aspen Valley Health’s plan to redevelop the Beaumont Inn on the city’s east side during a meeting on Tuesday.
The project will redevelop the property’s existing 25 units into 60, mostly one-bedroom units to house full-time hospital staff. It’s part of AVH’s plan to build 256 housing units in the next 10 years, said Tom McCauley, AVH chief human resource officer. It will target the hospital’s biggest problem in retaining employees, AVH CEO Richard Becker said. Becker took on the CEO role in January.
“It’s really amazing to come to a small community, albeit Aspen for sure, but still a rural community, and find the level of expertise that we have and that type of care that we deliver is really amazing, and rivals much larger medical centers with strong reputations around the country,” Becker said. “I will tell you, in my not even yet three months, I probably had … 50 conversations with individual staff members, nurses, techs, and it goes like this every time: ‘I love it here, this is the best job in the best place. My one issue is housing.’”
The housing will prioritize employees who may need to be called to the hospital at a moment’s notice during an emergency.
The development will create 60 affordable housing units across seven new buildings that would range from 26 to 30 feet tall. The proposal calls for 58 on-site parking spaces. AVH will provide five additional off-site parking spaces at the hospital’s campus to meet city development parking requirements.
Some residents living near the Beaumont Inn expressed concerns about the density of the project and the increased transportation impacts of the expanded housing project. But AVH leaders said the hospital disincentivizes daily single-occupancy vehicle use by prohibiting hospital workers in AVH employee housing from parking in the hospital’s garage.
The development also requires plans to offset additional transportation trips it will likely produce. AVH plans to mitigate those trips with a dedicated van shuttle service for employees, subsidizing employee bus passes, increasing bike parking, offering a small fleet of electric bikes and aiding the city in improving the crosswalk across Highway 82 at the bus stop near the Beaumont Inn.
Some council members wanted to see the density of the project decreased. Chris Bendon, principal and cofounder of BendonAdams, said the 60 units were critical for AVH to reach its larger housing goals.
Councilwoman Christine Benedetti said the proposed density was a good thing.
“I think that density is a housing solution, I think it’s an environmental solution, and this seems like an appropriate place to increase density,” Benedetti said. “It’s on the highway, it’s walkable to town, it’s within a couple miles of their employer. I’ve said it at this table before, but we want to continue to support employers who are building units for their employees, and, to me, this does it.”