Highway Star wrote:Vinny Vincenzo wrote:Highway Star wrote:As I've been screaming about for the past week or so.........yes, they are in a ~$30M+ hole with the mountain infrastructure, and have too much underutilized capacity.
Without major outside investment, the only hope is that they can budget more for mountain ops, and make wise choices with the meager capital they have to improve snowmaking and other efficiencies in the operation.
WTF are you talking about? $30M in the hole? Where you do you get this information? They fully expect to lose money on this deal for 5 years. It's a tax shelter for their other windfalls. They knew all this when they bought it.
You're like the little kid at Thanksgiving who wants to eat dinner with the adults. You need to go sit at the card table with other little kids.
WTF are you talking about??????? Tax shelter or not, Killington has been on MINIMAL, LIFELINE capital expenditure for the last 2,
if not 8-10 years. What was the last thing built on the mountain of any signifigant expense????
The K-1 in 1998.
Why does most of the mountain look like hell? Because they haven't spent the money to maintain or upgrade things as they wore out. Lodges, lifts, snowmaking gear. If ASC had been putting $5-8M of capital per year into Killington over the past 5+ years, it would be in alot better shape than it is right now. HENCE, they are about $30 million in the hole on needed upgrades to bring the mountain up to par with other resorts, and make it reasonably profitable again.
What are you missing here????? You seem like a smart guy, but why are you arguing with me on this point???
Jeez. Moron of the month once again.
ASC owned Killington for a decade (11 years). During their ownership, the following happened:
* K1 gondola
* Needles Eye High Speed Quad
* Rams Head High Speed Quad
* Woodward Reservoir project to provide infinite snowmaking water
* Mahogany Ridge addition to Killington Base Lodge
* Reconstruct the Superstar and Snowshed Yan High Speed Quads
* Buy Pico and offer the potential of a huge interconnected resort
* Reconstruct the High Speed Quad at Pico that was a Yan
* A bajillion tower guns
* Replaced the entire grooming fleet
* The land swap of Parkers Gore for all the land at the bottom of Killington that makes a base village possible
Sure, the austerity budget of the last few years has sucked but I challenge you to find a ski resort in the Northeast that has seen anything like those capital improvements. All that work was done on borrowed money and the debt and 12% interest on the debt is what put ASC under.
If POWDR didn't think they could make the mountain function properly out of operating profits, they never would have entered the deal. The problem with the plant at Killington is deferred maintanence. That ain't $30 million to fix. There's nothing wrong with the lift infrastructure. Uphill capacity is more than adequate and most of the lifts are well within their useful service life. Only the Snowshed doubles and the poma are truly ancient. They already have near-100% snowmaking coverage. They just need to fix the leaks and replace failed pipe sections. The base lodges need some TLC and updating. With less people using the resort on Saturdays, they have enough square feet already and they have the whole downstairs of the K Peak lodge they can expand into.
I'd like to see a fixed-grip upper mountain lift to the top to solve the fall and spring skiing problem. I'd like to see the Pico interconnect some day. I'd like to see a number of ski-to private businesses in the new village so the mountain has some competition for my lunch and alcohol money. In the short term, I'd be happy if they painted the lifts, repaired the footrests, made snow early and often, and trained their staff to do their jobs properly.
