ThreeFifteen Aspen at 315 E. Hyman: A Test of Local Tenancy
Until this summer, Carol Breen made silver jewelry at home. Now she works in a studio upstairs at 315 E. Hyman Ave., across from the Wheeler Opera House. She told the Aspen Daily News that the space has let her experiment more, and that she hopes to launch a jewelry collection by December.
Her studio is one of eight rooms that used to be empty Gravity Haus offices. The whole building reopened on Sept. 17 under the name ThreeFifteen. Its partners describe it as space occupied entirely by locals. That makes 315 E. Hyman a live trial of something downtown Aspen has talked about for years. The question is whether local operators can keep a prime commercial building running where a well-funded national company could not. The trial has terms. One of its anchor programs is on a fixed lease, and its first group of artists finishes on Jan. 1, 2027.
The building has changed hands quickly.
| Period | Occupant | How it ended |
|---|---|---|
| Through April 17, 2022 | Eric's Bar, Su Casa and the rest of the Compound | Closed at the end of the 2021–22 ski season |
| About 2022 to Aug. 31, 2025 | Gravity Haus, with Unravel Coffee and Boat Tow | Closed in less than three years, citing Aspen's operating costs |
| Sept. 17, 2026 onward | ThreeFifteen, a group of local tenants | Open |
Gravity Haus's exit is the baseline for everything that followed. Its membership club had been open for less than seven months when members got the closing email in July 2025. A company spokesperson said the timeline to profitability "did not align with investors/asset managers' goals and expectations, largely due to the high cost of doing business in Aspen."
So a hospitality brand with outside investors had the same address, the same corner across from the Wheeler and the same costs, and decided the math did not work. ThreeFifteen is trying a different mix of tenants in that building.
The project started with a newspaper that needed somewhere to go. When the Aspen Daily News was sold to Hoffmann Media Group in February, the new owners chose not to renew the lease on its longtime offices at 625 E. Hyman Ave. Publisher David Cook went looking for what he called a "soft landing." He asked developer Mark Hunt about leasing a couple of the unused offices at 315 E. Hyman. Hunt encouraged him to take on much of the building instead.
Readers should know that the Daily News is a partner in ThreeFifteen and one of its tenants, so its account comes from inside the project. The Aspen Times reported the arts program and the building's tenant mix separately in July.
Cook's reasoning was openly a bet against the trend. Most downtown landlords are signing national and international companies, so he wanted to fill the building with locally run businesses and community spaces instead. "We wanted to set out to prove that locals could do something that was as reliable and meaningful, both from an output perspective as well as a well-curated perspective," Cook said. "We're really hoping to shift the trend back towards favoring locals for these important buildings in downtown Aspen."
Cook said the deal depended on the landlord. In his account, the Hunt family could have gone after much larger commercial tenants and chose to back the local concept. Hunt described the result as "seeing the building come back to life and become a place where people want to spend time." He has not publicly offered a longer-term plan for the building, and no redevelopment application turned up in our research.
The building works because its pieces support each other. Each tenant fills a different hour of the day.
Office tenants include longtime Aspen businesses, and the Daily News now has its newsroom in the building too.
The Savickas sisters had been working on a neighborhood market idea before they heard about ThreeFifteen in May. Liz Savickas calls the food "all-American," served from an all-day menu: salads, sandwiches, wraps, chicken Parmesan, meatball subs, family recipes and rotating specials. The online menu adds avocado toast, house-made quiche and a Chicken Caesar Parm Crunch Wrap. The market side markets its chicken salad as something to grab on the way up the mountain.
Those hours are the website's current listing. No tenant has publicly said whether it will keep the same schedule through the October and November off-season. Check before planning a weekday lunch around it.
The Grove gives the building a reason to stay busy after Eddy's market closes at 6. It has already hosted comedy, yoga, breathwork and private gatherings. Cook calls it a "one-of-one" space in Aspen. Two public events are posted for next month:
The book club discount connects the building to another longtime local business a few blocks away. That kind of local cross-promotion is what Cook's pitch depends on.
The studios have a set term, which is where the trial's schedule comes from. The Aspen Times reported that Buckhorn has an 18-month lease on the offices. The Daily News says Buckhorn leased the eight offices for a year. The two outlets disagree on the length, but both describe a fixed lease.
Inside that lease, the residencies last six months. The first group started July 1 and runs through Jan. 1, 2027, when new artists can apply for the next six months. The first eight residents include painters, a sculptor, a macramé artist, an art teacher, two silversmiths, a photographer and a musician. Kendra Lauren makes custom hats in her studio there. Founder Tim Sack estimated that six of the eight had never had a dedicated studio before.
The funding is designed to make the program pay for itself eventually. Donors Mark Pincus and Hilary Shaw back the studios. Buckhorn's press release says it wants the Aspen Arts Club to become "a self-sustaining ecosystem," with income from coworking memberships, public events and on-site retail. Proceeds from The Grove's activations go back into the residency. Sack calls the membership model "key to the whole program." That means comedy night audiences and coworking members help keep the studios rent-free.
Buckhorn hopes to add open studios and workshops, but none are scheduled yet. Sack has said he hopes the program "continues for years in the future," beyond the current lease. For now, the next date on the record is Jan. 1, 2027, when Breen's residency and the rest of the first group's end, and the second group of artists moves in.
How a downtown building is leased, and to whom, shapes how the street around it works for years. Will and Sarah follow those decisions closely, from tenant mix to landlord strategy. If you'd like to talk through what changes like the one at 315 E. Hyman mean for property you own or are considering in Aspen, The Burggraf Group welcomes the conversation. Connect with Will & Sarah for a private consultation.
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