After months of delays and stalls, the town of Nederland announced Tuesday that it has signed a letter of intent to buy Eldora Mountain Resort from its current owner, Powdr.
Mayor Billy Giblin said in a news release the town will “build on Eldora’s legacy” to create a community driven, sustainable, year-round destination that supports local jobs, outdoor industries and infrastructure development in the town of about 1,500 residents.
The price for the 680-acre ski area about 20 miles west of Boulder was not disclosed, but town officials last year estimated they would need $100 million to $200 million to get the deal done.
Arapahoe Basin, which is twice as large as Eldora, sold in November to Alterra Mountain Co. for $105 million.
The Eldora purchase will be financed with the sale of municipal bonds to be repaid using lift-ticket and other on-mountain revenue, a structure intended to protect local taxpayers, town officials said Tuesday. The town hopes to reduce debt by applying for grants and developing private-sector partnerships.
The exact price will likely remain secret. However, Nederland’s elected trustees will soon vote on bond resolution that includes a not-to-exceed sum setting the maximum debt the town’s Mountain Recreation enterprise fund will assume to buy the ski hill and pay consultants and advisers needed to close the deal.
Because enterprise funds do not use tax money, they are not subject to voter approval under Colorado’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.
The deal could close as soon as October, the town said in a FAQ on its homepage.
The resort, which opened in 1962, will be run by the town in partnership with Front Range-based 303 Ski, a coalition of industry heavy hitters, many formerly with Vail Resorts, for the purpose of “stewarding the next chapter of Eldora Mountain Resort with integrity, local insight, and deep industry experience.”
Among them are Dwight DeBroux, who played a key role in retail expansion and large-scale change management during Vail’s global workforce growth of 400%; Mark Gasta, former executive vice president and chief people officer at Vail Resorts; and Blaise Carrig, former president of Vail Resorts.
Powdr’s former senior vice president and general counsel Emily Smith and Justin Gold, founder of Boulder-based Justin’s Peanut Butter and an investor in another Nederland-based project, the new Wild Bear Nature Center, are also joining.
Giblin said Powdr will help Eldora through a two-year transition period. Eldora’s 700 workers will become town employees with town benefits when the deal closes. He said 303 Ski is expected to support Eldora after Powdr’s transition services agreement ends.
Nederland hopes to annex the mountain, about 5 miles from town, which would give it more control as it develops Eldora into a multi-season resort with summer operations and, perhaps, the return of night skiing, Giblin said. Eldora will remain part of the Ikon Pass program, ensuring a stable and predictable revenue stream critical to the resort’s financial health, according to Powdr.
More information will be available at a town hall meeting at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Nederland Community Center (and it will be livestreamed).
In the company of other city-owned hills
Powdr bought Eldora in 2016 and announced in August it would put Eldora and other resorts it owns up for sale.
Powdr bought the resort from Bill Killebrew, who along with two others owned Eldora for 25 years and rescued it in 1991 from the brink of closing.
The sale will put Eldora in the company of a handful of Colorado ski areas owned by local governments.
Durango opened the 7-acre Chapman Hill in 1966. That same year, Gunnison opened the previously privately-owned, four-run Cranor Hill. Steamboat Springs took over its downtown Howelsen Hill in 1937. Silverton revived the dormant 35-acre Kendall Mountain — which first hosted skiers in 1963 but closed in 1982 — in the 1990s. Lake City opened Lake City Ski Hill in 1966 but it was closed for 24 years before reopening in 1998. The tiny, free Lee’s Ski Hill in Ouray opened in the late 1940s.
A nonprofit Lake County recreation board inked a 99-year lease to run Ski Cooper in 1942 after the Forest Service bought the former 10th Mountain Division training area from the military after World War II. Huerfano County-owned Cuchara Mountain Park appears on the verge of a renaissance after a state economic development grant and private donations funded crucial lift repairs on the hill run by the nonprofit Panadero Ski Corp.
Winter Park, now managed by the private nonprofit Winter Park Recreational Association and operated by the giant Alterra, was opened by the city of Denver in 1940.