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While summer activities continue to expand at the Base Village area, The Collective building is getting a $3.5 million interior remodel and the community building is set to re-open for the winter ski season.
Jeremy Wallace/The Aspen Times
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Things are really starting to come together inside The Collective.
As the summer buzz picks up around the Snowmass Base Village, the $3.5 million transformation inside the community building continues at a pace to be open for the winter season.
The 8,700-square-foot building will consist of a restaurant, small bar, community space and a game lounge, and at a recent Town Council meeting, those involved with the remodel and operating of the space said the partnership with the town is going well.
Longtime local chef Martin Oswald, who will run the Mix 6 restaurant and Moxie bar area, said the design groups for the two-story building have worked well with the seating areas as well as the kitchen.
Those plans allow for everything from fast-casual restaurant style of Mix 6 to catering any size public or private events to doing a 10-course meal with wine pairings, “we are set up to do that, and very flexible with that,” Oswald said.
“We have a modern, different design in the kitchen, to understand and handle both needs” from events with hundreds at the ice rink to smaller private events, he told the Town Council at its June 3 meeting.
Anchoring the downstairs will be a game lounge for children with some of the usual activities to burn off that leftover energy, including a ball pit designed to look like Ziegler Reservoir and paying tribute to Snowmass’s woolly mammoth finds.
The game area will have a number of kid-centric interactive art installations, including a musical mural. Being designed by Denver-based artist Detour, the piece will have color bars that make a different note and will create sound ranging from a guitar to a piano, Singer said, calling it “visually interesting and super interactive.”
As well, there are plans for a drawing wall mural on a dry-erase board that children can draw on and be wiped off each day.
The community space upstairs is being designed with mobility in mind to be able to go from small seating areas to talk or relax to an open concept that can host indoor concerts or large public or private events. Singer said the furniture will be light enough that just a few people will be needed to transform the space.
However, most of the time it will be arranged so people can come relax and hang out or conduct a few quick updates, East-West managing partner Andy Gunion said.
“We want that to be a place where you can go check emails for a couple of hours and feel comfortable hanging out there,” he told council. “You might go grab a drink or something, but it’s supposed to be a community space where you can relax and hang out. The real game-changer for next season will be Martin in there, and now we can have catering in there.”
Oswald’s fast-casual concept is to get people making what they want and when, then hanging out while the kids play nearby or getting back to the outdoors. He said he is putting out “my best recipes from the last 35 years” with the idea of getting anybody who walks through the door to eat there.
“They might want a place to sit down and relax and not feel obligated to order right away,” Oswald said, adding that when they do “it goes very, very fast and you actually choose to sit down outside or inside in the different locations we have.”
Previously know as Building 6, the town owns the property and leases it to East-West Partners, one of the major partners in the $600 million Base Village revival.
Plans are in the works for a Dec. 14 reopening party, officials said during a June council meeting, and construction should be finished by Thanksgiving. There likely will be some soft openings between those dates.
The building was open for the past winter season, and Charlie Singer with East-West Partners said they hosted more than 5,000 people over the course of 130 events, ranging from yoga classes to a holiday market. East-West spent about $250,000 for the winter programming and temporary build-out, he said.
“It was a substantial investment for most of this past winter, but we think it’s been a great success and well-received,” Singer said.
And while the interior work continues there and at the two buildings behind it known as One Snowmass, the summer program is picking up at the Base Village and complements the events at the Mall, which is base for the Thursday concerts and other weekly events.
At the June 17 council meeting, the community board made up of local business representatives talked about the growing partnership to promote activities in both areas.
Getting people back and forth from the Mall to Base Village continues to come into the conversation with the colorful gondola known as the Skittles, and it was brought up at the most recent council meeting. While no decision is in the works, all those involved said it is an issue that needs to be addressed as more people are coming and going between the hubs and lines, and waits are happening more often.
Town officials said the Base Village development and work with East-West continues to meet their approval and adds to the excitement as the area becomes more known to visitors.
“They’ve been great partners and stepped up. They certainly have a business need to make this function well, and we have a community to make this function well,” Town Manager Clint Kinney said of East-West’s efforts. “Between those joint efforts, we’ve done some pretty great work.”