Mountain runoff.

• Author: TITUS, STEPHEN
• Position: Colorado's urban development

ASPEN'S COMMUTERS SPUR DEVELOPMENT IN SURROUNDING TOWNS

IN 1969, JOHN McBRIDE BROKE GROUND ON HIS FIRST ASPEN PROJECT. HE'S JUST NOW GETTING IT FINISHED.

Back then, McBride's idea for the Aspen Business Center was considered forward thinking. Aspen was still an out-of-the-way hangout for hippies, and celebrities looking for an escape. Who needed offices, banks and dry cleaners?

Today, however, the commercial center located across from the resort town's busy airport, is packed with 130 businesses and 120 apartments. It is evidence of the daily human tide that crowds State Highway 82 at rush hour, and the shift of population up valley toward Glenwood Springs.

In June 1999, McBride broke ground on North 40, the finishing touch to his neighborhood creation.

Designed for locals by a local, North 40 is 60 single-family homes and 12 town-homes owned exclusively by folks who have lived and worked in Aspen or Pitkin County for at least three years. The average Aspen-area residential tenure of buyers, in fact, is 22 years.

But what makes McBride's project unique is its affordability. In a town and county where residential lots routinely sell for $500,000 and housing resales don't come in under $1 million, McBride sold his lots for about a third of market value, and each buyer is building his or her own home.

"These people, as opposed to buying homes built for them, are putting down roots," McBride said. "I came to Aspen in the early days and it was dirt cheap back then; I wanted to give people a chance to set down roots like I did. I've built several houses myself, and I think it's a very important human expression," he said. "I personally think they should do a lot more of this kind of thing."

But money still speaks loud when it comes to development issues in and around Aspen. McBride said he could sell the land for North 40 at a discount because of his business park's success and the success of other projects he has developed. In fact, what's driving much development outside Aspen now, according to developers and planners in the valley, is Aspen's utter lack of affordability, coupled with its draw as the heart of employment and recreation, creating a commuter culture along Highway 82.

Between 1990 and 1998 Aspen averaged growth of 2.8 percent per year, and in 1998 had a full-time residential population of 6,222, the town office said. But in Basalt, the once-tiny hamlet half way to Glenwood, growth during the same period averaged 55 percent per year, and its population ballooned to 6,581 residents, nearly half employed in Aspen. Traffic jams on 82 led to installation of HOV lanes, and the Colorado Department of Transportation is now in the midst of a project expanding the highway from two to four lanes along the entire 45-mile stretch to...