Aspen's Armory Hall

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Identifying future programming use and remodel options for Aspen’s historic community asset

The Armory Reimagined: Respecting history, shaping the future.

The City would like your input on the potential redevelopment of Aspen's Armory Hall and has added a survey to the bottom of this page. The results will be presented to City Council during a Nov. 13 work session.

As part of the process to redevelop Armory Hall, city staff has met with Aspen City Council seven times over the past year, with the most recent work session held on June 5, 2023. Council came to general agreement that most

Identifying future programming use and remodel options for Aspen’s historic community asset

The Armory Reimagined: Respecting history, shaping the future.

The City would like your input on the potential redevelopment of Aspen's Armory Hall and has added a survey to the bottom of this page. The results will be presented to City Council during a Nov. 13 work session.

As part of the process to redevelop Armory Hall, city staff has met with Aspen City Council seven times over the past year, with the most recent work session held on June 5, 2023. Council came to general agreement that most of the building should be a community use, with reference to the top results of community outreach that provided more specificity: casual dining, community center, multi-purpose space, non-profit services, and lower price point retail.

Council directed staff to proceed with the design process on the Armory so that a condensed timeline can be implemented.

City staff and consultants in the summer and fall of 2023 are conducting a “test fit,” which is part of concept planning to determine how much square footage is necessary for different types of uses.

Concepts and floor plans were presented at an open house held at the Armory on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023. Over 200 people gathered in the space, formerly known as City Hall, to review preliminary concepts, ask questions of the design team, and provide input.

Guided tours through the building provided history and an up-close perspective of the building’s potential and its constraints.

More guided tours will be available onsite on Wednesday, Oct. 18, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The project’s current direction is based on extensive public outreach and community engagement, which included two online questionnaires, an open house, two focus group meetings and surveys. Staff heard overwhelmingly that the community needs a place to gather, that the Armory should be the heart of town, a community living room with the ability to eat, experience entertainment, shop or just hang out.

The remodel is estimated to cost $18-$23 million.


Project Overview
The City of Aspen is currently updating its long-term plan for Armory Hall (The Armory), located at 130 South Galena Street. For many decades, the Armory served as Aspen’s City Hall, though many departments recently relocated to the new city hall facility at 427 Rio Grande Place. The facility is currently being used to house the utility billing and IT departments. As the City of Aspen organization prepares for the next phase of the Armory’s history, we are engaged in community discussions about the future possibilities for the building’s programming use and remodel options, as well as the strategies necessary to achieve proposed goals.


Project Information:
The Armory sits on a 6,000 sq. ft. lot in Aspen’s downtown Commercial Core Historic District, adjacent to Conner Park. It is located within the Public zone district and is designated as a historic resource. The City has allocated money for planning the redesign of the project. Next steps will be to determine funding options to undertake the remodel.

The City recognizes the importance of community use as an element of future programming and remodel options. In 2015, the city initiated an advisory ballot question to gauge the electorate’s preference for the Armory site as a future community use or city offices; the community use narrowly passed. Once again in 2018, the election cycle included a ballot question presenting two locations for a new city hall; the results confirmed a preference for the Rio Grande/Galena Plaza site with a 57 to 43 percent margin.

  • CLOSED: This survey has concluded.

    This questionnaire was posed to community members in 2022. It was designed to confirm the community’s preferred programming uses for the Armory. It also explored ideas around interior aesthetics, space considerations, funding and future operational support. The City treated this as a feedback form, not a statistically valid survey. Over 120 responses were recorded and that information helped inform the preferred programming and remodeling recommendations that Aspen City Council is currently considering.

    Look for an updated survey in the fall of 2023.

    Take Questionnaire
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  • CLOSED: This survey has concluded.

    What is your idea of community use and access? How do you prioritize community values around environmental and financial sustainability, small town character and historic context, community needs and programming opportunities?
    We want to hear more from you on these topics as the City develops a long-term strategy for the remodel and future programming use of Armory Hall (Armory), located at 130 South Galena Street. Built in 1891, the Armory has a long, rich history in the City of Aspen and we now have an opportunity to explore what its future story will be.

    We invite you to take this short questionnaire (approx. 12 minutes) to share your thoughts with us about your values and priorities as the City seeks to balance needs and preferences with funding and logistics. Information gathered here will be shared with City Council to help inform the decisions made around programming and remodeling options at the Armory. 

    This survey will close on Friday, March 18, 2022, at 11:59 p.m.

    Take Survey
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Page last updated: 01 Nov 2023, 02:10 PM