Vail Valley rehab, wellness center to break ground Friday, July 13, in Cordillera, expects to begin seeing patients in September

After years of litigation, construction will finally begin Friday, July 13, on an addiction recovery and wellness center in Cordillera.

All Points North Lodge will be an integrated behavioral health, wellness and addiction recovery program located at the site of the former Lodge & Spa at Cordillera. The facility could begin seeing patients by September, the owners said.

The program's owners and operators, APN Capital, expect to spend $136 million on the project. The first phase is expected to cost $20 million, they said.

FINALLY MOVING FORWARD

Noah Nordheimer, founder and managing principal of APN Capital, is excited that the lawyering is behind them — most of it, anyway — and building is before them.

"We have brought together the brightest minds in this field to work here in the Vail Valley, and we are giving them one of the most impressive facilities and campus in the country from which to do this important work," Nordheimer said.

"The singular approach to substance-abuse recovery that we currently employ does not work. Instead, we need a holistic approach that includes physical and mental health, nutrition and fitness to make people healthy."

Along with helping people recover from addiction, APN Capital will also develop "transformative health technologies" to enhance the recovery process, Nordheimer said.

Jeff Brooks founded October Road, an addiction treatment program that he left six years ago. Brooks came out of retirement to be chief operations officer of APN Lodge because "they are making the investments to enhance quality care and to positively move clinical outcomes in a way that I haven't seen before."

After the first phase, additional acreage will be redeveloped into a health care campus that will offer specialized programming in wellness, physical and mental health, spiritual discovery and enhancement, primary care and preventive medicine services, Brooks said.

LEGAL CHALLENGES

Several Cordillera homeowners tried for years to stop Nordheimer's Baltimore-based firm from converting The Lodge & Spa at Cordillera into a drug and alcohol rehab center. However, District Court Judge Fred Gannett pointed out that their numerous legal actions have one thing in common.

"Every one of these legal challenges was unsuccessful," Gannett said when he threw out numerous legal challenges brought by Cordillera homeowners and barred them from suing again on the same grounds.

Texas-based Behringer Harvard sold The Lodge & Spa at Cordillera to Nordheimer's Concerted Care Group and CSNM LLC, the development group that will convert The Lodge into a rehab center. After shopping The Lodge around for three years, the Concerted Care Group was the only serious prospect, according to court documents.

In February 2017, Federal District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson threw out Cordillera's $100 million class-action lawsuit and refused to delay the sale of The Lodge. The sale closed in August 2017.

On Sept. 15, 2017, Eagle County District Court Judge Paul Dunkelman ruled that the Eagle County commissioners were correct when they unanimously gave Nordheimer the green light to convert and renovate The Lodge & Spa at Cordillera.

In October 2017, Nordheimer and his partners struck back, filing an Americans With Disabilities Act lawsuit in U.S. District Court, claiming that the Cordillera Metro District, the Cordillera Property Owners Association and several individuals were discriminating against the addicted. That suit is still working its way through federal court.

"Cordillera property owners have been monitoring the planning and development of All Points North Lodge. We are aware that the building permit process has been underway with Eagle County and they have been considering general contractors to undertake work on The Lodge building," said Rachel Oys, general manager of the Cordillera Metro District.

"As the owners of The Lodge have claimed in their filings with the U.S. District Court that they have been 'barred from commencing the use and providing housing and services to the clients,' we are as interested as anyone to hear the news that development is moving along."

In the meantime, an appeal in the state court is moving forward, Oys said.

"The Cordillera Property Owners Association continues to believe in the merits of the appeal and that (the) proposed use is simply not a use-by-right in the Cordillera PUD. We continue to await the federal court's decision with respect to the pending motions to dismiss the lawsuit against the community," Oys said.

https://www.vaildaily.com/news/vail-valley-rehab-wellness-center-to-break-ground-friday-july-13-in-cordillera-expect-to-begin-seeing-patients-in-september/

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