SCHUSS SPRUCE-UP

Ski Resorts Spend Billions Amid Boom

By David Frey, 12-28-06

If you had skied Sun Valley, Idaho when the resort fired up North America’s first chairlift, you might not recognize it now. Founder Averill Harriman had envisioned a place for “roughing it in style” when he opened it in 1936, but at Sun Valley, and at ski resorts across the West, style has far surpassed roughing it.

Just before Christmas, the resort wrapped up a $6 million remodel of its lodge apartments, appointed with European fabrics, granite countertops and plasma-screen TVs. A 50-year master plan lays out plans for terrain expansions, new equipment and upgraded facilities at a resort that draws notables like California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has a home there, a ski run named for him and famously broke his leg on the mountain recently.

“Our high-end units usually go first,” says marketing director Jack Sibbach. “People are coming not only for the ski experience, but for the whole overall experience.”

Throughout the West, ski resorts are investing billions of dollars in upgrades as facilities age and visitors come looking for luxuries never imagined when skiers on wooden boards defined a ski vacation as a rope tow and a bed with a bathroom down the hall. The industry is booming. So are resort towns. And visitors to both come with high expectations.

Booming Industry, Booming West
“The growth of the mountain resorts is tied to broader issues of growth in the rest of the country and the Western states,” says Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association.

Winter resorts are becoming year-round destinations, he says, and many who settle in resort towns don’t even come for the snow. “If you ask someone who’s moving to a ski town, skiing may not be among the first one, two or three reasons.”

Meanwhile, resorts, like many of their visitors, are reaching a certain age, when a facelift might be in order.

In Vail, Colo., the resort and the town are investing in a “Billion Dollar Renewal,” sprucing up streets, rebuilding aging lodges from scratch and creating a new luxury hotel, the Arrabelle at Vail Square. Across the mountains in Aspen, the skiing company is creating a new base village at Snowmass, trying to rejuvenate aging facilities at a family destination that has lost its competitive edge. Luxury lodging, new shopping areas and high-end residences are in stoe. Statewide, resorts in Colorado are investing millions more, from a new lodge at Arapahoe Basin to new luxe homes at Breckenridge.

In Utah, Snowbird is turning heads with a $1.4 million tunnel linking its two areas, the first of its kind in North America. It recently wrapped up a $5.6 million facelift of its Cliff Lodge. Over at Solitude, the one-time locals’ hill is reinventing itself as a boutique getaway, replacing aging structures and raising a European-style village where once there was a parking lot.

“It was getting pretty obvious that we weren’t going to make it as a family-owned resort just focusing on the locals,” says Jay Burke, Solitude’s director of marketing and public relations. “There’s just too much competition.”

More visitors, more demand
Part of the investment comes from the growth in skiing and snowboarding. A record 58.9 million visitors came to the nation’s winter resorts last season, and observers expect those numbers to remain on the rise. Baby boomers are skiing longer, and they’re bringing their children and grandchildren with them to the slopes.

“There’s a demand for real estate,” Berry says. “There’s a demand for amenities, which is to say, people are looking for restaurants and shopping amenities.”

Many who come have money to spend. They’re looking for fancy lodging, nice restaurants and pampering spas. “You can be 20 miles from a ski area and still find a sushi restaurant,” Berry says. Mountain resorts are also looking to year-round business. Summertime brings visitors looking for golf, concert series and cool-mountain weather to get away from the city. Off-season, those revered times in spring and fall when mountain towns used to revert to the locals, is a concept that’s disappearing. Places like Sun Valley, which calls its off-season “slack,” don’t slack much anymore.

“We do more business in the summer,” says Sibbach. says Jack Sibbach, director of marketing at Sun Valley, where the resort is working on a 36-hole golf complex. “Our highest rate for rooms is in the summer.” The resort is working on a 36-hole golf complex to lure summer visitors, and it’s upgrading its lodging to keep the resort looking fresh.

“When you have a tired lodging facility, people notice that probably first,” he says.

Looking for luxury
Resorts across the West are scrambling to cater to luxury-seekers, refurbishing aging buildings and building whole new communities. At Wolf Creek, Colo., beloved for its low-key atmosphere and some of the deepest snow in the state, Texas billionaire developer Billy Joe “Red McCombs” is proposing the $1 billion Villages at Wolf Creek project. The development – a proposed 222,100 square feet of commercial space, hotels and homes for up to 10,500 people – has drawn ire from both environmentalists and from the nearby ski area itself.

Even tiny Sunlight Mountain Resort, in Glenwood Springs, Colo., a family-oriented, locals’ favorite without the niceties of nearby Aspen and Vail, has gone under contract to a Florida development group seeking to build a new base village at the aging resort, whose no-frills lodge harkens back to skiing’s earlier days.

It’s not just the growth of skiing and snowboarding that’s driving such investment, Berry says. It’s the growth of the West. According to recent census tallies, five western states – Arizona, Nevada, Idaho, Utah and Colorado – are among the 10 fastest growing states in the nation. While home sales in urban areas have begun to slack in many places, in mountain towns, housing markets remain hot.

“These are some of the states that are going to be growing most in the next 10, 20, 30 years,” Berry says. “I see the West continue to grow.”

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