Mar. 16--Vail's Sonnenalp Resort plans a $50 million luxury-condominium and fractional- ownership project in Vail Village. 

The plan calls for leveling the 1970s-era Swiss Haus -- a 59-room hotel -- and developing a 22-unit, 50,000-square-foot luxury condo project adjacent to the award-winning Sonnenalp hotel. 

The new Swiss Hotel & Spa would feature three penthouse suites, 14 fractional-ownership units and five market-value condos. The proposed plan, which requires local approvals, would develop 5,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and an underground parking lot. The project also would add 30 rooms and nine suites to the Sonnenalp as well as double the resort lodge's 7,000 square-foot spa. 

The Sonnenalp is the latest in a wave of Vail hotels to propose fractionally owned units. The Vail Village Inn redevelopment is planning 99 hotel rooms, 50 fractional units and almost 20 employee housing beds. 

The Chateau at Vail is being redesigned as a Four Seasons flagship hotel, but with a fractional component. The Vail Mountain Lodge is planning a renovation that would include wholly owned and fractionally owned condos as well as traditional hotel rooms. 

The Sonnenalp has yet to hang a price tag on the fractional units at the proposed Swiss Hotel, but the for-sale penthouses and condominiums will match comparable properties in Vail Village, where new luxury homes sell for $1,500 to $2,500 per square foot. 

The resort company has not selected what form of fractional it will offer at the new hotel. The company, owned by the Faessleramily, who also owns a similar hotel resort in Bavaria, manages Vail's fractionally owned Austria Haus. The Austria Haus, which features 25 hotel rooms, has 18 fractional units, each selling to nine owners. 

The new Swiss Hotel probably will offer each of its fractional units to more than nine owners, said Joni White-Taylor, president of Sonnenalp Real Estate, which will handle sales at the new hotel. 

"There's really never been, in Vail, a new product like this," White-Taylor said. "This is the first time the town will have new product run by a world-class hotel." 

Mixing luxury hotel amenities with fractionally owned condominiums is a strong trend in Colorado's mountains. 

Aspen Highlands and Beaver Creek both host Ritz Carlton Clubs, which -- residential units shared by several owners with the amenities of a top-notch hotel. The fractional component becomes an economic engine for hotel developers like Ritz, who use fractional revenue to build neighboring luxury hotels. 

The fractional trend is strong in resort towns where aging lodges, like the Swiss Haus, struggle to compete with fancy hotels nearby. Fractional ownership provides hotels with the opportunity to generate big revenues by selling chunks of ownership. That revenue then fuels high-level amenities -- like the Sonnenalp's private golf course in Edwards -- that keep buyers immersed in luxury and lure new buyers. 

"We are really excited to market this project," White-Taylor said. "It's already drawing a lot of interest." 

Towns like Aspen and Vail welcome the fractional trend because it fills them with more visitors than a traditional condominium project would. 

"You get a much higher occupancy than you do with fee-ownership," said Rod Slifer, founder of the Vail area's largest real estate firm and a Vail town councilman. 

Another advantage to fractional projects is that it lends a sliver of affordability in resort towns where market-value real estate sells in the millions of dollars. 

"This gives people an opportunity to get in at a much lower price," Slifer said. 

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