Until this summer, silversmith Carol Breen worked out of her house. Now she has a studio upstairs at 315 E. Hyman Ave., across from the Wheeler Opera House. She told the Aspen Daily News that the room has let her move her work from hobby toward a business, and that she hopes to launch a jewelry collection by December.
Her studio is one room in a larger plan. The building now goes by ThreeFifteen, and every tenant in it is local. It held its grand opening in September. The partners have said plainly that it is a test of whether locals can run a prime commercial building in Aspen's core, sustainably and well. That test has dates attached, and the first ones fall this winter.
One Address, Three Lives in Five Years
Most longtime residents knew this building as the Compound. The Casper family ran Su Casa, Eric's Bar, Aspen Billiards and the Cigar Bar there until April 17, 2022, which was also closing day on Aspen Mountain that season. The Aspen Times put the closure alongside other locally owned restaurants that shut that same year, including L'Hostaria, Pinions and Jimmy's.
| Period | Occupant | What was reported |
|---|---|---|
| Through April 2022 | The Compound: Su Casa, Eric's Bar, Aspen Billiards, Cigar Bar | Family-owned, closed at the end of the 2021–22 ski season |
| December 2022 to summer 2025 | Gravity Haus, opening first with Unravel Coffee and Bar | A partner described a "very long-term lease" and a phased plan for fitness, coworking and gear |
| July 2025 | Gravity Haus announces Aspen closure | Lease terms not disclosed, future use unclear |
| September 2026 | ThreeFifteen | Locally operated food, retail, art, events and a newsroom |
When Gravity Haus arrived, the plan called for a long run. It lasted less than three years. When it said it would close, a spokesperson declined to share the lease terms, according to the Aspen Daily News. That record is the backdrop for the current experiment.
How a Newsroom Ended Up Running a Building
ThreeFifteen started because a newspaper needed a place to go. Hoffmann Media Group bought the Aspen Daily News in February and chose not to renew the paper's longtime lease at 625 E. Hyman Ave. Publisher David Cook went looking for what he called a "soft landing." He asked developer Mark Hunt about renting a couple of empty offices at 315 E. Hyman. Hunt instead encouraged him to take on much of the building and build something new around it.
As the paper itself reported, Cook saw most downtown landlords signing national and international tenants and set out to do the reverse. "We're really hoping to shift the trend back towards favoring locals for these important buildings in downtown Aspen," he told the Aspen Daily News. The same story said the Hunt family could have gone after considerably larger commercial tenants but chose to back a group of local operators.
What Is Inside, Floor by Floor
Each tenant was chosen to bring people back on an ordinary weekday:
- Eddy's Market and Eddy's Sit and Stay. Sisters Liz and Sondra Savickas run both of the upstairs food-and-beverage spaces. The market is in the former Unravel Coffee spot. Eddy's own site lists coffee, groceries, chef-made sandwiches, pastries, local gifts and a chicken salad it calls "famous." The kitchen menu includes avocado toast, house-made quiche, the Chicken Caesar Parm Crunch Wrap and a signature Eddy salad, plus cocktails, beer and wine.
- The Aspen Arts Club. Buckhorn Public Arts, founded by Tim Sack, rents eight offices and turned them into free studios. Donors Mark Pincus and Hilary Shaw fund them, and each artist gets a six-month residency. The first cohort is Rae Lampe, Axel Livingston, Jamison Menard, Abril Ramos, Greta Zaveckaite, Carol Breen, Aggie Flores and Kendra Lauren, who makes custom hats in her studio. Sack estimated that six of the eight had never had a dedicated studio before.
- The Grove. Buckhorn also runs this flexible downstairs room where Eric's Bar used to be. It has hosted comedy, yoga, breathwork and private gatherings, and speaker series and receptions have been discussed. At launch it was also pitched as affordable coworking for remote workers.
- Mischief Vintage. A vintage goods and clothing shop the Aspen Times called the "artistic expression" of Shiloh Uhlir. It also gives the resident artists shelf space to sell their work.
- Tattoo Aspen, the Aspen Daily News, and offices. Tattoo Aspen stayed on. Other longtime Aspen businesses have taken the remaining offices and coworking desks, and the newspaper now works from the building too.
Liz Savickas described the whole thing to the Aspen Daily News as something like a downtown block party: a place to get coffee, run into a friend, find an artist working upstairs or catch an event downstairs.
The Model Has to Pay for Itself
The tenant mix is also how the building earns its keep. The Arts Club wants to be what its launch release, quoted by the Aspen Times, called "a self-sustaining ecosystem." Its income comes from coworking memberships, public events and on-site retail, along with donor support for the studios. Sack called the membership model the "key to the whole program." Proceeds from events at The Grove go back to the Arts Club.
So the art upstairs depends on traffic downstairs. A busy Grove and steady coworking memberships keep the studios free. Shoppers at Mischief Vintage help turn residents into working sellers. Breen's December collection is exactly the result the model was built for.
The time horizon is short, at least on paper. Buckhorn's space comes with an 18-month lease, and Sack told the Aspen Times he hopes the program "continues for years in the future." No overall lease term or redevelopment plan for the building has been made public. The dates that are public all fall between now and the new year.
The Dates on ThreeFifteen's Calendar
- Now through the shoulder season. Since Oct. 14, Eddy's Marketplace has been on off-season hours, open daily from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Eddy's Kitchen, the Sit & Stay side, is open Thursday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with happy hour from 4 to 6 p.m. on those days. In this stretch, a weekday coffee across from the Wheeler is easy to find.
- Nov. 26. Aspen Snowmass has set Aspen Mountain's 2026–27 opening for Thanksgiving Day, as reported by the Aspen Times. This will be the first ski season for a building that opened in September. Eddy's already pitches the chicken salad as something to grab on the way up the mountain.
- December. Breen's target for her jewelry collection. A few blocks away, eatAspen's winter 2026/27 roundup lists Le Cafe as coming to the former Mezzaluna space that ZigZag most recently held.
- Jan. 1, 2027. The first artist residency ends. New artists can then apply for the next six months. The first cohort was picked through an open application, with a stated aim of mixing mediums, experience levels, ages and backgrounds. The second cohort will be the first sign of whether the studios become a lasting institution.
Why the Experiment Reaches Past One Building
Local storefronts are still closing nearby this fall. Aspen Eclectic, Carrie and Larkin Horn's toy, game and gift shop, closed at 635 E. Cooper Ave. as its lease neared its end, the Aspen Daily News reported in September. That backdrop explains why the partners built ThreeFifteen as a demonstration. In the launch story, Cook's stated hope is that the project shows keeping prime commercial space in local hands can make economic sense and bring more life downtown.
Hunt sounded similarly hopeful. "Seeing the building come back to life and become a place where people want to spend time has been really rewarding," he told the Aspen Daily News. The next measure comes after the Thanksgiving opening and the January artist turnover, when the building gets its first test against a full winter of downtown foot traffic.
At Krista Klees | Palladium Group, we follow the buildings that shape daily life in the downtown core as closely as the homes around them. If you want to talk through how the changing commercial blocks of Aspen's core fit your own plans, request a private consultation.
