A New South Ridge Lift and the Rebirth of a great ski resort

[icedtea]

The Village is causing decision paralysis on many things: Paving the access road, SRT replacement, lodge renovations, etc. By default, the sure thing gets built in the meantime. More Bear condos. As the years go by the effect of this paralysis grows. The best Village plan needs to be more incremental. Even though "Phase 1" is a fraction of the projected total, it is too big to build at once in this market. There seems to be a lack of developers waiting at the doorstep. Note that even the Bear project is getting phased, with 6 lower buildings of condo units first (and even those will get built in sequence) and then 18 duplex condos along Space walk. Killington has announced Ottauquechee Realty Advisors LLC as the partner for the Bear project. There are no permits yet for Bear, but for some reason, with act 250 permit now in hand, the timing and builder for The Village has yet to be announced.

A used lift makes more sense for a lift that runs 20-30 days a year. Amortizing a new lift for that few days is a financial nightmare. On the other hand a flagship resort buying a used lift looks cheesy. Killington will likely build a new lift, but it might get timed after enough of the condos at Bear sell. Pre construction offers should hit the market by Christmas. Maybe by the World Cup.

How is this effecting current RE?

[PinnacleJim]

Current real estate market is reasonably healthy. Condos are selling though prices are still well below the peak of 10 or so years ago before the recession. Inventory continues to drop and that usually means prices will begin to rise. Here's a good analysis of the current market.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/files.usmre.co ... 202Q17.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Highway Star]

Sounds like a good approach. I bet there is a lot of equipment out there on the used market. However, the POWDR pockets are deep enough to do this right or close to right. Put in something new that will offer a good lifetime of service, cut another trail and maybe one or two glades sections on SR, and that effort plus the Bear project will be perceived as adequate to keep the public interested in Killington and perhaps be more competitive until the village debacle gets going. Then the Snowdon quad problem gets taken care of as part of that overall strategy. Not saying that I like that, but it seems to be where this is all heading.

Of course I feel that the Snowdon Quad should go to SR now, and put in a new HSQ at Snowdon at the existing footprint now. Should have been done years ago and POWDR would have been reaping the benefits. The problem with that is that POWDR will want a lift coming up and out of the village, and the Snowdon quad seems to be the target for extending lower into a village on/off. Maybe something like the Collins chair at Alta, which is a HSQ with a midstation. The bottom of the chair would load HSQ style in the new village, and that would be low volume even during holidays. Then the midstation would be at the current bottom now. Such a midstation would be the functional bottom for parts of the season when there will be insufficient snow or insufficient demand to run the village bottom stop.

An actual cohesive plan that makes sense:

- Move Snowshed double to south ridge
- Move ramshead quad to snowdon
- Install 6-pak lift on Ramshead
- Remove snowshed lift and install 6-pak
- Move snowshed lift to south / kton side interconnect lift, top to bottom
- Install snowdon quad as pico side interconnect lift

~$20M and mountain skis MUCH better.

[crystalmountainskier]

Any chatter on the manufacturer of the new lift? Lots of Leitner-Poma heritage at Killington but Powdr's been on a Doppelmayr kick lately (Mt. Bachelor, Copper, Eldora.)