Killington: "maximize the spend."

[Geoff]

Here is a copy of the email I sent the reporter on Monday to clarify the story. In addition, she failed to use the proper context of my quote, which is listed below:

Cristina,
Thanks for the story on the Killington Village in Sunday's Rutland Herald. Although the headline and title header were somewhat misleading (I know that you don't have any control over that), overall it was a great story with a variety of viewpoints from a number of sources. However, there are a few clarifications that we would like to point out:

"Today, Killington finds itself wrestling with the latest and largest proposal for ski resort expansion ever presented to town planners and residents — a 408-acre mix of condominiums, new ski lodges, retail shops, and nearly everything else needed for the ideal family vacation, from an indoor water park and movie theater to an art gallery."

As we stated in our meeting with you and Bruce a few weeks ago, this is NOT the largest proposal. In fact, it is significantly smaller than the ASC proposal. In addition, the inclusion of a water park, theater and art gallery are not part of the overall project application. These are items that are listed in the Town of Killington's zoning regulation.

Thanks for using sales tax as a quantifier, however, the following statement needs clarification.

"In 2008, Killington made roughly $101 million on skier visits - from meals, rooms, alcohol and retail sales, according to the state Department of Taxes."

Need to quantify this time period, full year? November to April? Also, should be stated that this is Town of Killington sales tax.

If you look on the Vermont Department of Taxes web site, the town did around $100 million in calendar year 2008.

Paragraph 7, the ownership structure is inaccurate and misleading:

"In the midst of a deep recession, the Utah-based company that owns the resort and the Texas-based financier and partner charged with developing the ski village plan are hoping to convince the town that their 25-year building plan will stand the test of hard times and make the area prosper with more skiers who will spend more money."

Correct ownership structure is Killington/Pico Ski Resort Partners, LLC for the mountain operation and SP Land Company, LLC for the Village Development project.

This is serious obfuscation. The ownership of those two corporate entities is indeed some combination of E2M in Texas and POWDR in Utah. Not just "out of state" but "not even in our timezone".

Finally, my quote was taken out of context: "Killington Resort spokesman Tom Horrocks confirmed that the goal of Killington's village is to "maximize the spend.""
My comment to you on June 25 during our phone conversation was ,: " ... as a community, we all need to look at ways to maximize what our quest spends from the resort all the way down the access road while they are here."

Ouch. That was an ugly mis-quote. No fans of POWDR and E2M in the local paper, I guess.

As always, please feel free to contact me regarding fact-checking and clarification.
Best regards,
Tom

I still don't quite understand how POWDR can possibly support construction of the village in that location. I'm 100% in favor of building ski-in/ski-out slopeside condos but that is not slopeside ski-in/ski-out. If you vaporize the convenient day parking, you're just going to continue to chase more of those "maximize the spend" day ticket people away sice they're not going to want to deal with a 10 minute wait for a shuttle from a remote parking lot. The anchor hotel should be in the learn-to-ski area directly below the Superstar quad. ...the logical heart of the resort. The condos should be below there on both sides of Snowshed slope so you can ski down to the Snowshed quad. The commercial space is too small to worry about. With only 32,500 square feet, you can put it wherever you want. I'd co-locate it with the new Snowshed & Rams Head complex. You don't need to give up parking to do that and you don't need to relocate the access road to build a concrete deck over it to better connect Snowshed to Rams Head. ...or you can just install a second tunnel farther uphill for much cheaper money.

 

[SpinmasterK]

I still don't quite understand how POWDR can possibly support construction of the village in that location. I'm 100% in favor of building ski-in/ski-out slopeside condos but that is not slopeside ski-in/ski-out. If you vaporize the convenient day parking, you're just going to continue to chase more of those "maximize the spend" day ticket people away sice they're not going to want to deal with a 10 minute wait for a shuttle from a remote parking lot. The anchor hotel should be in the learn-to-ski area directly below the Superstar quad. ...the logical heart of the resort. The condos should be below there on both sides of Snowshed slope so you can ski down to the Snowshed quad. The commercial space is too small to worry about. With only 32,500 square feet, you can put it wherever you want. I'd co-locate it with the new Snowshed & Rams Head complex. You don't need to give up parking to do that and you don't need to relocate the access road to build a concrete deck over it to better connect Snowshed to Rams Head. ...or you can just install a second tunnel farther uphill for much cheaper money.

Great questions Geoff!
First thing to address though is it is not Powdr, the village is being proposed by SP Land Company, LLC. Steve Selbo is the lead on the project and would be better at answering specific questions pertaining to the village. In addition, Killington/Pico Ski Resort partners, LLC is the operator of the resort.
DM me and I will provide Steve's email for you.

 

[tcharron]

Not putting him down, just saying that he is failing to make a good point.

Oh my, the audience has failed to entertain the jester. Well, at least we're still in the audience, so I'd be kinda ok with failing at entertaining the performer.

 

[SIKSKIER]

This is good stuff.I love watching somebody bury themself.

 

[thorski]

This is good stuff.I love watching somebody bury themself.

SIKSKIER=Schadenfreude

 

[Highway Star]

I don't get it.

Though, I would be curious if selbo responds to geoff's email.