The Aspen Club is in foreclosure no longer.
On Wednesday, GPIF Aspen Club, the note-holder on the property, withdrew its foreclosure as well as the $33.1 million bid it placed Monday, according to the Pitkin County Treasurer’s Office.
“They (GPIF) understand how close we are (to refinancing),” Aspen Club president Michael Fox said Wednesday. “And we think it’s in everyone’s best interest to close the financing and get the creditors paid off and complete the project and get the company up and running.”
GPIF Aspen Club began efforts to foreclose on The Aspen Club in March 2018, one month after Pitkin County District Judge Chris Seldin ruled a sale could occur because The Aspen Club was delinquent to the tune of $10.7 million on the note. GPIF Aspen Club acquired the $45 million loan note from the original lender, FirstBank, in December 2017. The Aspen Club currently has a total balance of $31.6 million on the note, according to public records.
A year has passed between the first scheduled foreclosure sale date of March 2018 and Wednesday’s scheduled sale, which means GPIF Aspen must start the process from scratch should it want to again foreclose on The Aspen Club, according to Sydney Tofany, Pitkin County’s chief deputy treasurer and deputy public trustee.
GPIF Aspen Club attorney Michel Williams of Denver did not respond to a message seeking comment Wednesday. GPIF’s principal office is in Fort Worth, Texas, based on a filing with the Colorado Secretary of State’s website.
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Fox said the foreclosure process is now a past issue.
“I was fairly confident it (the foreclosure withdraw) was going to happen,” he said. “There’s a lot going on behind the scenes. This is the outcome everyone wanted.”
When FirstBank, the original note-holder, took foreclosure action in November 2017, it said that Aspen Club violated contractual agreements of the loan because of more than $15 million in mechanics’ liens on the property (more than $20 million in liens are pending against the club), made at least 10 change-orders with the contractor for the first phase of the redevelopment without the lender’s approval, and amended the construction contract with the contractor without notifying or receiving the bank’s approval.
Few if any alterations will be made to the redevelopment project to The Aspen Club — which includes a remodel the 40,000-square-foot Aspen Club & Spa building, the construction of a 54,000-square-foot lodge with 20 timeshares, and 12 multi-family affordable-housing units — Fox said. He expects construction to resume next month after the refinancing is in place.
Most construction at the 1450 Ute Ave. project site has been on hold since late August 2017 when subcontractors walked off the job because they were owed money for labor and materials.