Ulysses Development Group Reopens Eagle Villas With $12.6 Million Renovation

Aspen —The obvious take on the Eagle Villas reopening is that it’s a victory for affordable housing in Eagle County. And it is. But if you look closer at the math, the real story isn’t just that the units stayed affordable — it’s that a private development group bet its reputation and a $12.6 million renovation budget on the idea that keeping people in place is cheaper than displacing them.

To hear Blaise Rastello tell it, the alternative was a slow-motion crisis. The 120-unit community has anchored the Town of Eagle since 1994, housing families earning 45% to 60% of the area median income. When the property went up for sale in 2023, the threat wasn’t just higher rents; it was the end of the valley’s middle class.

“If the property went to open-market sales, prices would rise to a point her family could no longer afford,” wrote the Vail Daily. Juliette Kennedy, a resident of seven years, knew this intimately. She had just given birth to a son with a congenital heart defect. If the market took over, her family of five would have to uproot and move to Denver, severing the support network that kept their lives manageable.

That’s the human stakes. The financial stakes were even higher.

Ulysses Development Group (UDG) didn’t just buy the building; they bought the complexity of keeping it affordable for the next 60 years. Rastello, who joined UDG in the summer of 2023, saw the expiration of affordability restrictions as a ticking clock. The group made an initial offer in the fall of 2023 but lost the bid. They didn’t walk away. They restructured, secured partnerships, and won.

“We don’t ever intend to sell this property, and so we’re gonna be the owners and operators for as long as we possibly can,” Rastello told the Vail Daily.

The renovation itself was a massive logistical undertaking. Residents were temporarily relocated to a nearby hotel for up to ten days while crews remodeled kitchens, bathrooms, and flooring. They installed new windows, roofing, gutters, and solar panels. The entire complex became ADA-compliant. The cost? About $104,000 per unit.

Getting the money required a patchwork of state and local funding. Eagle County provided a $4 million loan. The Colorado Department of Local Affairs contributed $5 million from its Affordable Housing Revolving Loans and $3.4 million from the HOME Investment Partnerships Program. JP Morgan Chase funded $41.4 million and $25.5 million, while the National Equity Fund invested $22.9 million in equity.

Rastello argued that the scale of the investment made saying "no" impossible for officials.

“I knew there was too much at stake here for everybody at every level of government to say no to,” he said.

The result is a property that looks different on the outside but feels the same on the inside. For Kennedy, the grand reopening on August 11 wasn’t just a ribbon-cutting. It was the difference between staying in Eagle and packing up for the I-70 corridor. The housing stays affordable. The community stays intact. And UDG stays put.

It’s a rare win-win where the "profit" isn’t just in the balance sheet, but in the stability of the people living inside the walls.