Killington Column - hot of the press
Posted by Martin Griff March 13, 2008 8:29AM
Killington's new ownership eyes the future
Thursday, March 13, 2008
BY MARTIN GRIFF
The new owners of Killington Resort in central Vermont are turning down the volume and that could mean music to the ears of snowsliders looking for a quality mountain experience.
Others hear static, as Park City, Utah-based Powdr Corporation makes changes at the resort it bought last year from the American Skiing Company (ASC), a one time major player in the ski world.
ASC was all about volume; it owned a collection of big resorts, including Mount Snow, Pico and Sugarbush in Vermont, Attitash in New Hampshire, Sugarloaf and Sunday River in Maine, Steamboat in Colorado, the Canyons in Utah and Heavenly on the California/ Nevada border.
ASC bought and expanded resorts at a pace above its financial means, and leveraged itself out of business. All its resorts have been bought by other companies.
Killington is the largest ski resort on the East Coast. Its communications manager, Tom Horrocks, started at the mountain under ASC and was kept on by Powdr. I skied with him last week on the mountain ASC once nicknamed "The Beast of the East," and we reminisced about how Killington was known for its discounted lift tickets and season passes. Skiers had their own name for the place: "Kmart."
Those days are over, Horrocks explained. Killington had so much debt that management had to hold season pass sales just to raise enough money to turn on the lifts and snowmaking equipment. "It was all about volume; they tried to raise money by putting as many people on the mountain as possible. But people weren't having a good experience because of the crowding."
Powdr is debt-free and doesn't have to sell tickets at a deep discount to raise operating funds. "Our goal is to have the price reflect the value of the product we provide. People are going to pay a fair price to get on the mountain, but they are going to have a much more enjoyable experience," Horrocks said.
Not all are happy with the new Killington. Lifetime ASC season ticket holders protested when Powdr announced that it would not honor the tickets, and ski clubs are upset that Killington put an end to the practice of selling them deeply discounted tickets.
Killington used to take pride in being the first to open and the last to close in the Northeast. Now they let their former partners in Maine duke it out for bragging rights.
"It never made business sense to blow snow on the mountain in October and then watch it melt away, or to build up huge mounds of snow to stay open in May or June, when so few people would be on the mountain. We'll open when it makes the most sense from a weather standpoint, especially with energy costs what they are today," Horrocks said, adding that "Killington is now being run as a responsible business, which is key to its long-term survival."
Local residents, businesses and the other resorts are watching and wondering how Killington's new business plan will play out.
Martin Griff / The TimesThere is still plenty of snow in Vermont. Snowbanks reached as high as the sign for Charitiy's on the Killington Access Road last week.
Twenty miles down the road, at Okemo Mountain Resort, spokeswoman Bonnie MacPherson said her resort has seen a 30 percent overall increase in season ticket sales and a 300 percent increase in sales of college student season passes this season. "We can't say all the guests came from Killington, but we survey the license plates in our parking lots twice a week and we are finding a lot more cars from New York and New Jersey; that's [Killington's] market, while our market is more from Massachusetts and Connecticut."
Horrocks said some of the local businesses expressed concern that Killington is not bringing in the volume that it once did. "We explain to them that rather than bringing in guests who end up having a bad experience on a crowded mountain and may not return, we're trying to build up the experience so that those who come will return as loyal customers."
Killington will be enhancing the on-mountain experience with a realignment of some trails and lifts. Preston Smith, Killington's founder, believed that all levels of skiers should be able to ski down from all six of Killington's peaks. That led to a web of crossover trails and a dangerous mix of novices and advanced skiers and riders on the same terrain. Horrocks said that the resort will be taking out some of those crossovers to make for a better and safer experience for everyone: "We'll still provide ways down but with trails redesigned to eliminate mixing and congestion." The trail changes will be announced next week, Horrocks said.
Lifts may also be moved or added for better traffic flow. "ASC would only spend money if they could see an immediate payback. Powdr is able to spend money with an eye on the future," Horrocks said
Martin Griff / The TimesThe little used Devil's Fiddle chair (I've only seen in operation twice in the 20 years I've been going to Killington) may be moved to a new location, as Killington management makes moves to improve traffic flow at the resort.
Powdr bought Killington along with SP Land Company, which will do real estate development at the resort. With news of Killington's sale came hope to many locals of an infusion of investment money so that plans for a long-talked-about village at the base of the mountain could move ahead. Horrocks said that last month the village plans were pulled from the Killington Town Planning Commission because the town needed more time to figure out its long-term growth strategy and how the resort village would fit into it.
Speaking of real estate, Times sports editor Jim Gauger is eyeing this spot for basketball, golf and baseball news, so I'm done in newsprint for the season. A tip of the ski helmet to Times letters editor Diana Groden for her editing expertise. I'll be blogging about snowsports year round at nj.com. The direct route to the blog is
http://blog.nj.com/skiing/ In addition to regular ramblings about skiing and snowboarding, I'm posting extra column-related information that isn't in the newspaper. Read more about Killington on the blog.
Contact Times snowsport columnist and nj.com blogger Martin Griff at
mgriff@njtimes.com.
© 2008 The Times of Trenton
EXCLUSIVE TO THE BLOG . .
If you're heading to Killington as an escape for the high taxes in New Jersey, beware . . . earlier this month the town of Killington passed a 1 percent local options tax on meals, alcohol, retail sales and lodging. While in New Jersey much of the taxing and spending is done by politicians against the will of the people, this new options tax was approved by a vote of the town's residents.
Of course, mountain tourists will pay the brunt of those taxes so Garden Staters visitors can look forward to taxation without representation when the collecting starts in October.
About a third of this tax will go to the state and the remaining two thirds is supposed to be used fund an Economic development agency.
Killington management was against the tax (taxation without representation for them too) and offered at $250,000 donation, along with future donations if a percentage of other business agreed to match the additional payments, but the townspeople did not go for that plan (one local told me it was nothing more than a bribe).
A BLAST FROM THE PAST . .
Here's a column I wrote about the Killington sale back on February 22, 2007
Killington changing hands
BY MARTIN GRIFF
Big news in the snowsport world this week. On Tuesday, the American Skiing Company (ASC) announced that it reached an agreement to sell its Killington and Pico resorts, located in central Vermont, for $83.5 million.
Once owning 10 resorts, ASC was a major player in the ski world. Because of financial troubles, they sold, or are in the process of selling, some of their big-name resorts. Heavenly Resort in Lake Tahoe went in 2002 and ASC announced the sale of Steamboat in Colorado last December. Early this month, they announced adios to Mount Snow in southern Vermont and Attitash in northern New Hampshire. All that is left of the empire is Sugarloaf/USA and Sunday River, both in Maine, and the Canyons Resort in Utah.
For East Coast snow lovers, the sale of Killington is a real eye opener.
Killington once branded itself the "Beast of the East," and for good reason. In comparison with other eastern resorts, the place is huge -- no comparison.
How are these for stats: six mountains (plus nearby Pico makes seven), a 3,050-foot vertical drop (largest in New England), 200 trails (OK, a few may be too short for purists to call trails, but it balances out with the 6.6-mile Juggernaut trail), 57 miles of snowmaking (87 miles of trails total), 1,435 snow guns (including 600 tower guns), 33 lifts (including 2 high-speed, heated express gondolas), five terrain parks, a 21-vehicle grooming fleet, five base lodges (not so cool when skier and auto end their day in lodges 11 miles away from each other), and a five-mile access road bursting with restaurants, bars, shops and lodging.
The tale of ASC's rise and fall could fill a college business textbook -- the business element of the Killington and Pico sale is quite complex and best left to business scribes to explain, but the simple story goes like this: SP Land Company, LLC, a real estate holding firm that was once involved in restructuring ASC's debt, is buying the land while POWDR Corp., which owns several resorts including Park City in Utah and Mount Bachelor in Oregon, is buying the skiing operation.
For what this all means to the snowsliders in New Jersey, I called Karen Lorentz, who wrote the book on Killington . . . literally. No joke -- she penned "Killington, A Story of Mountains and Men."
The author lives six miles from the mountain and can keep an eye on it from her kitchen window. She also works with her husband John, an attorney whose specialty since the 1970s has been Killington-area real estate closings.
Lorentz said she is thrilled with the news of the sale and hopes that it means an infusion of investment money so that a long-talked-about village at the base of the mountain will now go forward. She is also hopeful that the dream of connecting Killington and Pico mountains will become a reality.
"These things will not happen overnight because of Act 250, a Vermont state environmental land-use law," Lorentz cautioned. "The state is very stringent as to what they allow ski areas to do and the permitting process can take a long time."
What can happen overnight when a financially struggling resort is bailed out is real estate speculation. A good example is Crested Butte, Colo. When the Mueller family, owners of Okemo Mountain Resort, 20 miles south of Killington, bought Crested Butte Resort in 2004, the prices of existing homes in the area went sky-high.
Lorentz said she did not think that would be the case at Killington, because people who are willing to spend big money on real estate are waiting to buy slopeside if and when the village at the base becomes a reality. Many of those people now own property in the Killington region and would put those properties up for sale after they bought in the village.
ASC announced that the proposed sales of the resorts will not have an effect on any current season passes, vouchers or advance purchase ticket products for the remainder of the 2006-2007 winter season. Multi-resort products such as All-For-One and Ski America passes will continue to be valid at all ASC resorts where they previously have been honored through the end of the 2006-2007 winter season. Gift cards, Value cards and Edge cards will continue to be valid in accordance with the terms of those specific programs.
