Vail Council Advances West Lionshead Plan, Imposes July 4 Curfew, Receives Clean Audit
At its June 16 meeting, the Town Council moved the West Lionshead redevelopment toward a fall pre-development agreement, approved a $150,000 planning contract, set a juvenile curfew for the Fourth of July, and received a clean 2025 audit.
The Vail Town Council used its June 16 meeting to push the town's biggest redevelopment bet forward, tighten security for the Fourth of July and take in a clean bill of financial health for 2025.
East West Partners told the council that a pre-development agreement for the West Lionshead redevelopment is on track for completion by fall 2026, according to the High Country Advocate's report on the session. The project as sketched would bring 280 residential units, a 150-key condo hotel, 300 public parking spaces and a music venue to the west end of town. Developer Jim Tilling cautioned that the project cannot move forward without a public financing component.
The pre-development agreement is not yet approved; it is the next step in a partnership the council unanimously endorsed to develop West Lionshead into a fourth base village at Vail Mountain with Vail Resorts and East West Partners. Under that deal, Vail Resorts agreed to drop its appeals of the town's eminent domain acquisition of the Booth Heights parcel in East Vail, and the West Lionshead project is to include incremental workforce housing.
We are in an era of renewed collaboration between the town and Vail Resorts.
Travis Coggin, Vail's mayor at the time of the announcement, in the West Lionshead partnership announcement (via PR Newswire)
Curfew and a planning contract
The council approved Resolution No. 22, Series of 2026, setting a juvenile curfew from 10:30 p.m. on July 4 to 5 a.m. on July 5 for anyone under 18 in public spaces. Operations Commander Christopher Botkins wrote in a memo to the council that the curfew, first used in 2024, proved effective in reducing disturbances around Solaris Plaza and the International Bridge during the holiday.
The council also authorized Town Manager Russell Forrest to sign a contract of up to $150,000 with Allison Kent of Mauriello Planning Group for current planning services, filling a gap left by the resignation of the Community Development Department's planning manager. The cost is to be reflected in the town's second 2026 budget supplemental.
Clean audit and a construction update
The council received its 2025 annual audit, which gave an unmodified, or clean, opinion on both the town's financial statements and its single audit of federal funds. The general fund closed 2025 with an $81 million fund balance, including $21 million in non-spendable receivables tied to the Timber Ridge sale. The auditor found no material weaknesses or significant deficiencies.
CDOT Resident Engineer John Cronholm briefed the council on Vail Pass construction, with the contractor facing a November 8 deadline for substantial completion and major work expected to wrap by late September or early October.
The session fit inside the framework the council adopted in May, when it voted 7-0 for Resolution No. 17, Series of 2026, approving the town's 2026 Five-Year Strategic Plan. The plan sets four priorities, a vibrant Vail experience, a strong community, a protected mountain environment and good governance, with dated targets including a West Lionshead development agreement by December 2026, a recreation center decision by December 2027, a land-use and housing code rewrite by mid-2027, removal of Gore Creek from the state's impaired waterways list by December 2029 and a 50 percent cut in town carbon emissions against a 2014 baseline by December 2030.
The council meets on the first and third Tuesday of each month at the Vail Town Council Chambers, 75 S. Frontage Road, with afternoon work sessions followed by an evening meeting at 6 p.m.