Real estate, skiing and courage.

[ckofer]

http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/articles/2008/04/20/a_village_with_a_view/

 

[Vinny]

Even though, we as consumers can gain, it starts to scare me a little when everyone wants to be "the premier destination in the East". I hope these investments pay off for everyone.

It reminds me of when I was selling Semiconductors around the world. During the first PC boom, everyone I spoke to was going to gain market share. Turns out a lot of factories and some companies closed down after overextending and the market not being able to handle the expansion.

 

[mishka]

"Celebration is one of a number of property developers who have bought smaller ski resorts in New England, such as Burke Mountain in Vermont and Ragged Mountain in New Hampshire, with the goal of creating upscale residential communities around them."

 

[jack97]

Even though, we as consumers can gain, it starts to scare me a little when everyone wants to be "the premier destination in the East". I hope these investments pay off for everyone.

Analogous to the semiconductor sector, once they have chosen to be in this market, they have no choice but to expand.

Actually of all places, BW is in a nice spot to cater to this crowd. Winter season, the notch protects them, they usually get snow while places nearby gets sleet or rain. Terrain and grooming makes for hero snow condition. Summer, I hear is great; hiking, water holes and golf.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

I'm all for on mountain real estate..if real estate development can bring in more revenue and fund on mountain improvements it's a great thing..

 

[ComeBackMudPuddles]

LOL. $1.1 billion + 182 acres? Yet another in a long line of mega-developments that won't happen....

 

[abc]

"Celebration is one of a number of property developers who have bought smaller ski resorts in New England, such as Burke Mountain in Vermont and Ragged Mountain in New Hampshire, with the goal of creating upscale residential communities around them."

Consider nothing much came of either Burke or Ragged (yet), that doesn't sound like a track record worth toting about...

 

[davidhowland14]

ragged only has one season of new ownership under it's belt and alot of that was spent fixing things up. seriously, given the shape the place was in last year, it's quite something that they ran a full season this year.

 

[ski_resort_observer]

CNL Income Properties just might be the largest ski resort owner in the US. Boyne is the contracted operator of most of it's ski resorts.

In addition to Sunday River and Sugarloaf, CNL also owns Brighton, Utah, and Cypress Mountain B.C. CNL’s winter resort portfolio also includes Bretton Woods and Loon, N.H.; Mountain High, Northstar-at-Tahoe and Sierra-at-Tahoe, Calif.; and the Summit at Snoqualmie, Wash. In all, it owns 71 lifestyle and recreation properties in the U.S. and Canada, focuses on golf courses, ski resorts, marinas, campgrounds, merchandise marts, destination retail and entertainment centers and attractions. They added several of the ski resorts by buying Booth Creek. It is based in Orlando, Fla.

Last fall CNL. purchased 27 premier golf courses for 301m. This company is huge and looks to be perfectly capable of financing the developement at BW.

 

[Geoff]

With the real estate and regional economic conditions at the moment, I find it hard to believe anybody is going to be building very much this year. I'm not convinced that prices are anywhere near the bottom yet at the ski resorts.

 

[Puck it]

CNL is affiliated with Disney. Deep pockets.

 

[tcharron]

LOL. $1.1 billion + 182 acres? Yet another in a long line of mega-developments that won't happen....

If it was anyplace else, I'd say no. But this is works off of the Mt Washington Hotel itself. This is also a 10-20 year development plan, no a 'here is a billion, have fun' project.

 

[ski_resort_observer]

With the real estate and regional economic conditions at the moment, I find it hard to believe anybody is going to be building very much this year. I'm not convinced that prices are anywhere near the bottom yet at the ski resorts.

Regarding CNL since this new developement won't be online for at least a couple of years I guess they think, like most everybody, that the real estate/credit crisis will be turned around by then.

To your point I wonder how sales are going for the new hotel/condominium at Stowe and the new developement at Loon. It seems crazy to think that 5 years down the road that there would be a market for the developements proposed/underway at kmart, Jay, Bretton Woods, Stowe, Burke and whatever others lay on someones drawing board yet to be announced. Everyone wants a village. They say that they need it to compete. What price will lift tiks be in order to support all this investment?

 

[Geoff]

Regarding CNL since this new developement won't be online for at least a couple of years I guess they think, like most everybody, that the real estate/credit crisis will be turned around by then.

To your point I wonder how sales are going for the new hotel/condominium at Stowe and the new developement at Loon. It seems crazy to think that 5 years down the road that there would be a market for the developements proposed/underway at kmart, Jay, Bretton Woods, Stowe, Burke and whatever others lay on someones drawing board yet to be announced. Everyone wants a village. They say that they need it to compete. What price will lift tiks be in order to support all this investment?

I suspect Stowe is pretty close to bomb-proof given their market. There will always be some number of very affluent people who will buy in any market condition. I think the mass-market projects are going to mostly stall for several years. The resale market everywhere is in the dumpster. Any developer is bound to be pretty conservative at the moment. If I were a banker, I'm not sure I'd be feeding money to a place like Burke this year.

The Killington village project is DOA at the moment. They don't even have a PUD. The permitting has to be done completely from scratch and the town is now very hostile towards the ski resort given the dramatic drop in skier visits and shorteneing of the season. My opinion is the village won't get built. Instead, the Texas money boys (H.L. Hunt family money) behind SP Land will opt to sell house lots for trophy homes; or perhaps engage a developer partner to build spec homes. The town can't stop that and the Act 250 environmental permitting is much easier for single family homes. I think the Texas boys will find a few hundred rich people, dump house lots on them, and bail out of Vermont. Of course, that's just my opinion. I'd be really surprised if anything was built in the Snowshed or Rams Head parking lots in the next 5 years.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

I suspect Stowe is pretty close to bomb-proof given their market. There will always be some number of very affluent people who will buy in any market condition. I think the mass-market projects are going to mostly stall for several years. The resale market everywhere is in the dumpster. Any developer is bound to be pretty conservative at the moment. If I were a banker, I'm not sure I'd be feeding money to a place like Burke this year.

The Killington village project is DOA at the moment. They don't even have a PUD. The permitting has to be done completely from scratch and the town is now very hostile towards the ski resort given the dramatic drop in skier visits and shorteneing of the season. My opinion is the village won't get built. Instead, the Texas money boys (H.L. Hunt family money) behind SP Land will opt to sell house lots for trophy homes; or perhaps engage a developer partner to build spec homes. The town can't stop that and the Act 250 environmental permitting is much easier for single family homes. I think the Texas boys will find a few hundred rich people, dump house lots on them, and bail out of Vermont. Of course, that's just my opinion. I'd be really surprised if anything was built in the Snowshed or Rams Head parking lots in the next 5 years.

Dead on the people with major loot want to be in Stowe..not Killington..

 

[ski_resort_observer]

As a side note to the Stowe developement...AIG just reported a 7.8B dollar loss, the biggest loss ever, for the 1st quarter.

 

[deadheadskier]

I suspect Stowe is pretty close to bomb-proof given their market. There will always be some number of very affluent people who will buy in any market condition.

This definitely true at Stowe. A friend of mine is doing very well selling condos at Spruce. Kind of a nice story. She was a struggling bartender in town for twenty plus years. When the project got going a few years back someone from their Real Estate division ate at her bar at the restaurant she was working at and thought she had the perfect personality for the job and offered to pay for her to get her license.

She basically went from making 30K with no bennys three years ago to Six figures with bennys within a year of that.

 

[ckofer]

What price will lift tiks be in order to support all this investment?

If the development can not support itself financially without raising lift passes, it should not be considered. The cash needs to come from another source.

 

[tcharron]

With the real estate and regional economic conditions at the moment, I find it hard to believe anybody is going to be building very much this year. I'm not convinced that prices are anywhere near the bottom yet at the ski resorts.

Prices of what?

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Prices of what?

he's referring to houses..up in Vermont real estate prices are dropping. Prices started dropping in most location 1.5 years ago but were holding steady in VT until a few months ago..