{"id":2448534,"date":"2019-09-10T20:48:01","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T02:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-city-council-chooses-to-hunker-down-in-new-building\/"},"modified":"2019-09-10T20:48:01","modified_gmt":"2019-09-11T02:48:01","slug":"aspen-city-council-chooses-to-hunker-down-in-new-building","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/aspen-city-council-chooses-to-hunker-down-in-new-building\/","title":{"rendered":"Aspen City Council chooses to hunker down in new building"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"263\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/09\/Cityoffices-atd-091119.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/09\/Cityoffices-atd-091119.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/09\/Cityoffices-atd-091119-300x127.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 620px) 100vw, 620px\"><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">A majority of Aspen\u2019s elected officials agreed Tuesday that the government seat should be in the new 37,500-square-foot municipal office building at Rio Grande Place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Four council members, with Mayor Torre in the minority, agreed that they want City Council chambers to be on the third floor of the new building.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">That meeting area falls under a planned 1,800-square-foot space characterized in conceptual plans as a <a id=\"N0x141e660N0x1604300:N0x141e660N0x1383800\" href=\"https:\/\/d3n9y02raazwpg.cloudfront.net\/cityofaspen\/e469bf73-d0ca-11e9-b703-0050569183fa-c00eeb57-b7db-4763-8c17-174415a9ced9-1568126899.pdf\">lecture hall<\/a> facing Galena Plaza.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Boards and commissions, and other community groups, can use that space, as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">A second meeting space, the Sister Cities room, also will be contemplated in the new building.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Staff can begin programming where other departments will be located now that council\u2019s preference on where it meets has been decided.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Where to lease space to the Aspen Chamber Resort Association (ACRA) \u2014 whether it\u2019s in the old armory, which is the current City Hall, or the new building \u2014 is still unclear.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">A majority of council appeared to favor the armory for ACRA and, if there\u2019s room, to reserve space for <a id=\"N0x141e660N0x1604360:N0x141e660N0x1383b60\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/local\/aspens-electeds-want-old-power-house-to-return-to-community-use\/\">community uses<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI\u2019d like to utilize the new building as much as possible,\u201d and free up space in the armory building for community uses, Councilman Ward Hauenstein said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">That would go toward honoring a 2015 advisory vote in which a majority of Aspen voters wanted the armory to become a community building used for purposes other than government activity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Voters last fall approved the location of the new, three-story building to be sandwiched between Rio Grande Place and Galena Plaza, with the armory also being used as offices for municipal employees.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">With a renovation of the existing Rio Grande building and the armory, as well as the new office building, <a id=\"N0x141e660N0x16043c0:N0x141e660N0x1383e30\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/aspen-city-council-moves-forward-with-48m-rio-grande-office-building-plan-despite-opposition\/\">the whole package<\/a> is estimated to cost between $46 million and $49 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Financed through certificates of participation, the payback is capped at $60 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The renovations and additional offices are designed to provide adequate space for city employees to work and centralized locations for the public.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Currently, municipal employees are working in cramped office space in City Hall, or are spread throughout town in rented buildings that cost the local government more than $500,000 a year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\"><a href=\"mailto:csackariason@aspentimes.com\">csackariason@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/local\/aspen-city-council-chooses-to-hunker-down-in-new-building\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A majority of Aspen\u2019s elected officials agreed Tuesday that the government seat should be in the new 37,500-square-foot municipal office building at Rio Grande Place. Four council members, with Mayor Torre in the minority, agreed that they want City Council chambers to be on the third floor of the new building. That meeting area falls [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2448534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-26 12:40:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2448534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2448534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2448534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2448534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2448534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}