Give us a call 970-872-3322
Give us a call 970-872-3322
Ask Gary Hubbell
Ami’s Acres at a Glance:
· $7.9 million listing price
For over 50 years, Ami’s Acres has been a campground refuge at the west end of Glenwood Springs, a popular tourist destination in Western Colorado on the I-70 corridor. With 44 campsites, 30-amp and 50-amp service, bathhouse, two commercial wells, sewer system and two homes, this 24.88-acre property has a great set of assets.
The Roaring Fork Valley is known in Western Colorado for an amazingly vibrant economy. Glenwood Springs is located at the lower end of the valley, northwest of the towns of Carbondale, Basalt, and Aspen. Aspen drives the local economy with its ski areas, Food & Wine, Aspen Ideas, Jazz Aspen, and an average home price of $14.1 million. The “down valley” towns of Basalt, Carbondale, and Glenwood Springs are where the doctors, lawyers, contractors, landscapers, bus drivers, ski instructors, and fishing guides live. Housing is in extremely short supply. Average home rents can easily top $4,000 a month.
Glenwood Springs and the Roaring Fork Valley is experiencing a huge housing shortfall and there is a severe shortage of vacant land to work with. This 24.88-acre parcel is on the west boundary of the Glenwood Springs city limits, but is located entirely within Garfield County. It makes sense to annex the property into Glenwood Springs. The property is not without its challenges, as parts of it are steep. However, there is a dedicated floodwater drainage system and plenty of space to build terraces for new housing. The owner of the neighboring property to the west has done exactly that, building a flat terrace of usable land with the intention of building storage units. Rough estimates of possible numbers of units on the Ami’s Acres property range from 120-350 housing units, depending on how many floors are dedicated to multi-family units. Tiny home developments have become popular, and this would be a great place to locate a tiny home community.
As a development property, Ami’s Acres has excellent potential. It has two commercial wells—40 gallons per minute and 21 gallons per minute—and two additional commercial well permits. Mitchell Creek, which is a source of domestic water for Glenwood Springs, is just half a mile or so east of the property. The City of Glenwood Springs sewer plant is located adjacent to the Colorado River about half a mile east of Ami’s Acres, and Ami’s Acres has an engineered sewer system with a macerating lift station that pumps effluent to the Glenwood plant. The Ami’s Acres system is operating at only 20% of its capacity. Regarding access, US Highway 6 was formerly the two-lane highway that ran east and west across Colorado until Interstate 70 was built. I-70 is now a major thoroughfare that goes right past Ami’s Acres in between the campground and the Colorado River. However, an isolated stretch of US 6 still parallels I-70 past Ami’s Acres, but it dead ends just west of the campground. Ami’s Acres has two driveway accesses to US 6, and a major roundabout and I-70 interchange is only about a mile to the east of the property.
Located at the confluence of the Roaring Fork and Colorado rivers, Glenwood Springs is a popular Colorado tourist destination. The world-famous Glenwood Hot Springs draws hundreds of thousands of visitors annually, as people soak in the therapeutic hot springs and swim and play in the bigger “cold pool”. Just west of the pool is the famous Hotel Colorado, built in the 1880’s, and there is a gondola to the top of Iron Mountain, where the enchanting Fairy Caves are located. Additionally, a new resort was built at the Iron Mountain Hot Springs, which is very popular, and Glenwood is known for many good restaurants and lots of events with Colorado Mountain College. Vail is an hour away via I-70 East, while Aspen is a little more than 45 minutes southeast by Highway 82, which is four-laned the whole way into town. Glenwood has a great reputation for excellent fly-fishing on local rivers; skiing at Vail and Aspen, not to mention the local Sunlight Ski Area; excellent big game hunting for elk, deer, and bear on Forest Service and BLM lands; four-wheeling, mountain biking, and hiking on local trails; and access to millions of acres of backcountry mountain terrain.
Ami’s Acres is owned by the adult children of the original founders of the RV park. They are informed, intelligent, capable adults and understand a developer’s needs. The family sees this as an opportunity to help Glenwood Springs grow and develop for the future, and consequently they know that it will take time for a developer to put their plans into motion. None of them is in dire financial straits, and all of them can be patient. However, they’re savvy negotiators and will need a commitment from potential buyers to become involved with the property.
