As the number of residents 65 and older continues to outpace those younger than 18 in the Roaring Fork Valley and across the country, there’s a growing need for affordable senior housing.
This noticeable demographic shift was top of mind for many who showed up last week in Glenwood Springs to celebrate the new $23 million affordable housing project for adults older than 55. The project, located at 2700 Midland Ave., stands across from an already existing senior living center.
Catholic Charities of Denver is behind The Benedict Apartments, which is named for late Aspen philanthropists Fritz and Fabienne “Fabi” Benedict, who donated about $2.1 million in affordable housing funds to the nonprofit in the 1990s, according to the organization’s housing director, Justin Raddatz.
“Seniors are just such an important part of our community,” Raddatz said. “Many of them are still working … and as we have costs rising so significantly, incomes don't always keep up and it's usually those on fixed incomes or limited income mobility that gets squeezed out first.”
The 34 one-bedroom rental units in the new apartment building are for people making 30% to 80% of the area median income (AMI), which is $74,000 for a one-person household in Garfield County. For a single occupancy unit, that equates roughly to an annual income of between $22,000 and $59,000.
Six of the units are for people making 80% AMI, 17 are at the 70% AMI level, four units are at 40% AMI, and seven units are at the 30% AMI level. The units at the lowest levels are supported by vouchers from the Garfield County Housing Authority.
Catholic Charities considered a number of factors when determining eligible income levels for the units, including market studies on housing needs, the different services required for lower-income tenants, and cost-cutting measures to keep a $23 million project affordable for tenants.
“We wanted to make sure that we were bringing a lot of different types of seniors together so they can work off each other and thrive off of one another,” Raddatz said. “But then also, you know, at the end of the day, the project has to pencil in and some of the higher AMI units and their commensurate rents help offset some of the rent that we don't receive on lower AMI units.”
“So when you blend it all together, it becomes a feasible project financially,” he added.
Retired Elk Mountain Motors manager Monte Nostrom and his wife, Elaine, who both attended the recent ribbon cutting and live near No Name Creek in Glenwood Springs, decided to apply for one of the new units after finding out their rent was going to increase by about $1,200 a month.
“We've been there 23 years and been good tenants and all that, but money's money,” Nostrom said. “Some of our neighbors that have just small cabins and what have you, all of a sudden, one of them sells for like, a million dollars, and all the neighbors get ‘Aspen-itis’ and houses that were half price, they want more. And of course, they want to increase everybody's rent.”
If all goes well with the housing application process, the couple will be paying about $1,500 a month for a one-bedroom unit, which is about the same monthly rent that they’ve been paying for their current home.
Nostrom, who has had several back operations and other health issues in recent years, appreciates that the new apartment building is accessible and close to amenities such as the 27th Street RFTA station, where the city recently completed an underpass connecting the east and west sides of Highway 82.
“It's very centrally located, and there are walkways you can go down, and it's got the river right here,” Nostrom said. “And so all the things I miss about No Name, I'll be able to have right here.”
Decades in the making
The senior housing project comes after several unsuccessful attempts by Catholic Charities in the past three decades to use the housing funds gifted in the 1990s by the Benedicts, longtime influential Aspen residents.
“The Benedict funds were restricted for the provision of affordable housing anywhere in the Roaring Fork Valley,” Raddatz said. “This particular Glenwood project was the final attempt in trying to use those funds.”
According to Raddatz, who has been with the nonprofit for about a decade, known previous attempts date to at least the late-2000s, including two projects in Glenwood Springs — one near the airport and another near Walmart — along with one in Willits Town Center and another near the Basalt business center.
In addition to the high price of land, Raddatz said the nonprofit ran into a number of roadblocks, including difficulty securing tax credits, undiscovered title issues and pushback from residents living near proposed projects.
“We had several starts and stops with projects,” Raddatz said. “It seemed like every time we proposed a project to the community or for funding, something came up that was totally outside of our control, that would rip it down.”
Gail Schwartz, a former state senator and recently retired president of Roaring Fork Habitat for Humanity, supported several of the projects, including the now-completed Benedict Apartments, but she said it's unfortunate that it took so long.
“At the end of the day, there's something very significant here that Catholic Charities has, in fact, done,” Schwartz said. “But it has taken a village, you know, it's taken some time.”
According to Schwartz and her husband, Alan, who was a close friend of and attorney for the Benedicts, the philanthropist couple was initially approached by the Rev. Tom Dentici about contributing funds to build more affordable housing in the Roaring Fork Valley. Dentici had spent several years at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Old Snowmass and was later a pastor at St. Mary Catholic Church in Aspen.
In addition to running shelter beds for unhoused people in the church basement, Dentici had also helped with the Villas de Santa Lucia — an affordable housing project off Highway 133 in Carbondale — as part of a wider effort by the Catholic Church to address inequities faced by immigrant communities and the rising cost of living in western Colorado.
“It was nothing short of phenomenal, because the Carbondale housing project was mainly for the Spanish-speaking community,” Schwartz said. “Father Tom really was a pioneer in this effort, and that's why he could go to the Benedicts and say, ‘This is what I've been able to do with funding.’”
Fritz and Fabi Benedict passed away in 1995 and 1997, respectively, and Dentici later moved to Steamboat Springs, where he spent his remaining years until he died in 2014. All three are honored with photographs and plaques in the entryway of the new apartment building, along with another local pastor who had been close to the Benedicts, the Rev. Tom Bradtke.
According to Raddatz, the Benedicts’ roughly $2.1 million contribution came from “a portion of a land sale,” although he did not say what specific parcel connected to the Benedicts’ large portfolio of area holdings was involved. The funds were invested by Catholic Charities and grew to more than $5 million before they were used toward The Benedict Apartments.
Despite the decades that it took to complete a successful housing project, the Benedicts’ daughter-in-law Jan spoke favorably of the final product during the Aug. 7 ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“I was married to Nicholas Benedict, and I know he and Fabi and Fritz are looking down on us today with great joy in what has been accomplished here,” Jan Benedict said. “Whether [Fritz and Fabi] were doing something for affordable housing or open space, or even their efforts with the [Aspen] music tent and the 10th Mountain Division [hut system], they did it for the community — it was always about the people.”
Support for senior housing
The $23 million project received additional financial support from a range of sources, including federal housing tax credits administered by the state; low-income vouchers from the Department of Housing and Urban Development administered by the Garfield County Housing Authority; and a $1.7 million state housing award.
The city of Glenwood Springs, which gave its final approval for the project in 2024, helped Catholic Charities keep costs down by waiving approximately $360,000 in development and impact fees.
“City Council approved those fee waivers because they thought it was the right thing to do,” said Watkins Fulk-Gray, a senior planner with the city’s community development department.
“They recognize that there is a need for housing in general, and particularly senior housing … and they understand that projects like this don't happen when it's left up to the free market,” Fulk-Gray added.
According to the city’s most recent strategic housing plan, Glenwood Springs was short about 1,346 single-family homes for its population as of 2023 and that housing need is expected to grow to 1,858 units by 2043.
“If it feels like the cost of living is getting more expensive in Glenwood, it's because it is,” Fulk-Gray said. “And a lot of that's driven by the lack of housing, plain and simple.”
With a growing number of older people in Glenwood Springs, the need is especially great for seniors. According to a regional housing study from 2019, about 44% of the city’s projected growth in the next few years is expected to be from people 65 and older. In the Greater Roaring Fork Region, the study found that the population older than 65 is estimated to increase 60% by 2030.
“We just really want to honor everything that the seniors have put into our communities and to our generations by making sure they have a dignified place to live,” Raddatz said.
Residents could start signing leases and moving into The Benedict Apartments later this month.
