Eagle County explores purchase of 87 Fox Hollow units to preserve community housing
Edwards property, currently owned by Vail Health and Breckenridge Grand Vacations, would sell for around $69 million
Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily archive
Eagle County took the first step toward purchasing the 87-unit Fox Hollow development in Edwards Tuesday morning.
The property, which is currently owned by Vail Health (27 units) and Breckenridge Grand Vacations (60 units), was listed for sale in the fall.
Currently, 44 of Fox Hollow’s 87 condominium units operate under some sort of deed restriction. The county plans to purchase Fox Hollow and increase the amount of deed restricted units — if the county purchases the entire property, it can put deed restrictions on the other 43 units, as well.
The Eagle County Board of Commissioners, acting as the Eagle County Housing and Development Authority, approved a non-binding letter of intent with the sellers of the property Tuesday morning.
“We are at the beginning of this journey, and this formalizes where we are today,” said Tori Franks, the county’s resiliency director.
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“We think there is value here to the housing authority, there is value here to the community, both financial and from bringing in additional (deed restricted) units in a partnership with one of our largest employers in the county,” Franks said.
A ‘complicated’ undertaking
Both Franks and Commissioner Tom Boyd called the purchase of the property “complicated” during the meeting.
Vail Health is allowed to own the county’s for-sale, deed-restricted units because it counts as a “qualified employer” under the county’s “eligible household” definition in the Eagle County Affordable Housing Guidelines, which require that the employer “regularly conducts business in Eagle County,”
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If the housing authority purchases the 87 units, which it would do as a whole, it plans to then master lease them all back to Vail Health for 30 years. Vail Health would pay predetermined monthly rents on all units, which range from one- to three-bedrooms, to the county, and the health system’s employees would pay rent to Vail Health.
“The tenant mix is not proposed to change,” Franks said. “Vail Health employees are living in it today. We anticipate that if this moves forward, Vail Health employees will live in it in the future.”
According to the letter, rent would begin at $2,000 per month for a one-bedroom, $3,100 per month for a two-bedroom and $4,000 per month for a three-bedroom, with annual 3% escalations on all units. This aligns with the current rates at Fox Hollow.
To purchase the property — currently estimated at $69 million, plus additional transactional costs — the county plans to issue bonds. The annual bond payments would be covered by the rent paid by Vail Health.
“We are looking at this as deploying a lot of the housing authority’s tools, but no out of pocket dollars,” Franks said.
At the end of the 30-year master lease, when the bonds are estimated to be paid off, the housing authority could then continue to partner with Vail Health, or repurpose the 87 for-sale, deed-restricted units to sell to other eligible households.
“This is actually a benefit to the community in that … once this is all executed, we (will) have more housing units in the deed restricted pool for our residents,” said Commissioner Jeanne McQueeney. “This is a good thing.”
If all goes smoothly, the county plans to close on the Fox Hollow in August or September. There will be more conversations and public meetings ahead of the closing to discuss further details as the project moves along.
