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Construction Could Start on Facility for Seniors in 2015

Design Workshop

Now that the Basalt Town Board has green-lighted a senior housing facility, marketing efforts to reach area seniors will ramp up. The non-profit behind the Continuing Care Retirement Community wants to start building in 2015. Aspen Public Radio's Marci Krivonen reports.

The facility is designed to allow seniors to “age in place." So, it includes independent living units similar to apartments and cottages, as well as skilled nursing units. The structures will be built at the Stott’s Mill property, an 18-acre plot near the Basalt High School.

Kris Marsh is President of the Aspen Valley Foundation, the non profit working on the facility. She says the Basalt town board praised the project before it was approved, unanimously.

"To have approvals finished in a year was really well beyond our expectations, we were really thrilled. And, it shows that the community of Basalt and the town council really recognizes the value of this project."

Marsh says the facility will add nearly 80 jobs to the local economy. Next steps for the project include finding a name, working to get seniors signed up to live there and attracting someone with experience to operate the community, or CCRC.

"None of us have really operated a CCRC, so we’re looking for an operator who will get involved now and help us in this first phase of financing, marketing and really being the operator long term," Marsh says.

The $65 million project will mostly be funded by entrance fees from residents and tax exempt bonds. If all goes according to plan, seniors could move in by spring of 2017.

About 20 percent of Pitkin County’s population is age 60 and older and the County’s senior population is expected to more than double by 2030.

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