Avon takes an early look at the redeveloped future of Sun Road area
Area is 'substantially under-developed,' consisting mainly of one-story commercial buildings while zoned for 80-foot mixed-use
Ali Longwell/Vail Daily archive
Avon, already on a journey to create more community housing, embrace public transit and become more pedestrian friendly, has big plans to remodel a center of its town core to support these ideals.
The town has drafted a guiding plan for the redevelopment of the Sun Road area, 8 acres in the town core on the southwest side of the Interstate 70 and Avon Road interchange that includes four privately-owned parcels: Walgreens, First Bank, Comfort Inn and the post office.
The Avon Town Council liked what it saw in the Sun Road redevelopment plan during its meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 28.
The Sun Road area is “substantially under-developed,” according to the Town Council packet, consisting mainly of one-story commercial buildings while zoned for 80-foot mixed-use. There has not been major redevelopment in the area since 2002 when the Sheraton Mountain Vista was developed.
“It has a ton of potential,” said Eric Heil, Avon town manager. “It is the most complicated, most expensive opportunity given that type of configuration, where you’ve got a mixture of uses.”
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What does the Sun Road redevelopment plan include?
Town staff started looking at the Sun Road area beginning in November 2023. The redevelopment plan is the next step in what will be years of work to update the area.
Heil drew a comparison to the vibrancy of LoDo in Denver.
“Those were ideas from leadership in the ’80s, and that’s the time frame it took to go from some vision of ‘something better could happen’ to ‘it’s actually happening,'” he said. “If we want to have all the bells and whistles and community amenities and integrated planning and better design, I think the town is going to have to be a very active participant to try to nurture that forward.”
The redevelopment plan contains a vision for a mixed-use development that includes housing — particularly community housing — commercial, lodging, governmental and civic facilities in a pedestrian-oriented space. The Sun Road area is zoned “town core,” which provides the flexibility for such an integrated development.
“The goal is to come up with a big vision and then outline next steps of how the town would promote this,” Heil said. “I think it’s going to take a lot of creative financing, subsidy by the town, a lot of engagement and leadership by the town to get interest and ideas and ideally something that might work in this area.”
The plan will serve as a guiding document for property owners, investors, donors and staff, including covering infrastructure, water and sewer systems.
“This is a first step in looking at how Avon is going to grow,” said Jena Skinner, Avon’s planning manager. “It’s looking at all the needs in this particular area.”
The redevelopment would accommodate the existing businesses and public facilities and include up to 70,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space, approximately 150 to 300 deed-restricted community housing units and 600 or more parking spaces, likely in an aboveground structure.
Part of the plan includes vacating the Sun Road right-of-way — eliminating the public road — to use the 26,200 square feet to make the area more cohesive for pedestrians. The existing Sun Road/Avon Road intersection would become a right-in, right-out vehicle access road to the development. At this point, however, this is just a “general concept,” Heil said.
The site might include a transit facility
The plan also includes a proposal to integrate a transit facility on the ground floor of the development.
Avon Station has become more active than anticipated, following a surge in both Core Transit and Bustang traffic. The station may reach its operational capacity in the next three to 10 years, depending on how much Avon’s regional transit partners continue to increase their service. “We’re going to take a hard look at, can that be expanded or is this other area another option?” Heil said.
Similar multi-modal, transit-oriented development is “becoming very popular all around, including the Front Range,” Skinner said.
Financing the Sun Road redevelopment
No part of the project will be easy to finance.
“It’s very difficult to finance when you’ve got commercial mixed with housing. It’s even more difficult when you’ve got community housing instead of free market housing. If we’re integrating parking, that makes it even more expensive and challenging. And then maybe that’s a site to help out with our transit needs, which adds another complication,” Heil said.
The Sun Road redevelopment area will be eligible to be funded partially through tax increment financing. The area lies within both the Avon Urban Renewal Authority and the Avon Downtown Development Authority, entities able to collect the increment of new property taxes developed from new development within their boundaries to be used within the town. But the town will also need to apply for grants and find other sources of external funding, to be determined later, when design plans have been completed.
Working with existing property owners
No action will be taken toward redeveloping any part of the property without the consent of and collaboration with the existing property owners.
“We don’t own the property, none of the properties are for sale, nobody has said that they want to leave, and so to work with those property owners is, throughout the document, we’re very conscious about that, from the beginning, middle to end, that it has got to work for those property owners, and we’re working with them every step of the way,” Heil said.
The plan has identified the post office, Walgreens and First Bank parcels as the highest priority for redevelopment. The earliest construction would begin on the first phase of the Sun Road redevelopment is in the second quarter of 2028, following grant funding applications, design modeling and obtaining a development partner.
The Town Council will review the plan one more time in February.
