The Nederland Board of Trustees has given the initial nod to a plan to buy Eldora Mountain Resort for $120 million. The board last month unanimously approved the issuance of as much as $225 million in bonds to pay for the acquisition and improvements at the resort.
And a group of resort industry insiders and investors that formed to help the town acquire and manage the ski area — 303 Ski — is no longer part of Nederland’s deal to acquire and operate Eldora ski area.
As the team of industry experts steps back, Nederland is moving forward with a complex plan to sell bonds, negotiate a new Ikon Pass arrangement with Alterra Mountain Co, secure a permit from the Forest Service and run the Eldora ski hill.
The 303 Ski group was formed by former Vail Resorts executive Dwight DeBroux and Boulder entrepreneur Justin Gold, the founder of Justin’s. The two enlisted tourism industry veterans including Dave Belin, Mark Gasta and Blaise Carrig, as well as Matt Randall, the founder of Spot insurance, and Emily Smith, the former attorney for Powdr.
“I’m really proud of the work we did and for the town’s ability to take it from here. For us, it’s mission accomplished. If the town needs future support, we’re here to help,” said DeBroux, who owns general stores in Gold Hill and Nederland.
DeBroux said the group formed with a mission to “bridge the gap between the town and the resort’s core management team.”
“The town ultimately decided to move forward independently,” DeBroux said. “There is a lot of positive momentum in the community and on the mountain right now and we’re grateful for the role we played to help bring it all together.”
Carrig was president of Vail Resorts’ mountain division when he retired in 2014 after more than 40 years in the ski resort industry.
In recent years he helped the community in Shell, Wyoming, revive Antelope Butte ski area in the northern Bighorn Mountains. He said he signed up with 303 Ski as an advisor because he’s interested in helping communities take control of local ski hills.
“They put my name out there as one of their advisors, but I never heard back from them,” Carrig said. “I told them I can’t be listed as an advisor if I’m not advising and they told me they were a little bit in the dark as well.” (DeBroux said the 303 Ski team was being “underutilized” by the town.)
Carrig, if he was asked for insight, would have pushed for Nederland to make sure the resort was well funded before dipping into revenues to fund town operations.
“I don’t know anything about how they are structuring this but I really do wish them well,” Carrig said. “I like the idea and I hope it can work.”
Resurgence of community owned ski areas
The community ownership ski area model is not new but it is enjoying a resurgence. Last month the Huerfano County-owned nonprofit Cuchara Mountain Park in southern Colorado re-opened after several years of community-based work to revive lift service at the ski area that closed in 2000.
Steamboat Springs has owned Howelsen Hill since 1937. Lake County has owned the nonprofit Ski Cooper since it acquired the pioneering ski area in the 1940s from the U.S. Army. There’s an effort afoot to revive Lake County’s Dutch Henry ski area at the Colorado Mountain College campus in Leadville. Silverton revived the dormant 35-acre Kendall Mountain in the 1990s. And Gunnison, Durango, Lake City and Ouray operate small community-oriented ski hills.
Shames Mountain in Terrace, British Columbia, Whaleback Mountain in New Hampshire, Black Mountain in Maine and Antelope Butte are forging new nonprofit, community-based ski area ownership models.
Powdr shedding assets
Powdr, which has owned the 680-acre Eldora since 2016, recently announced it had hired Andrew Gast to run the ski area that opened in 1962. Gast has been general manager of the nonprofit Mount Ashland ski area in Oregon since 2022, helping the community-run ski hill install its first new chairlift in 35 years.
A community-led effort in 1992 raised $1.7 million to acquire Mount Ashland and save it from closure. Mount Ashland on Jan. 15 announced it was suspending all operations “due to low snowpack, warm weather in the forecast and no snowfall projected.”
Powdr was founded by John Cumming in 1994 with the purchase of Park City Mountain Resort in Utah. The company acquired more than a dozen ski areas — including Copper Mountain — before transitioning to a new business model that emphasized adventures and experiences.
It lost its home hill in Park City and in the last couple years the company started shedding ski areas. Powdr sold Silver Star ski area in Canada, Lee Canyon ski area in Nevada and Killington ski area in Vermont. It listed Mt. Bachelor ski area in Oregon along with Eldora in 2024 but announced last year it would keep Bachelor.
Cumming, who co-founded the Mountain Hardwear gear brand in the early 1990s, is reining in his ski resort business while he serves as a trustee for his late father’s Cumming Foundation, which has $278.6 million in assets. He sits on the board with his brother David Cumming, who serves as president of the foundation, and their stepmother, Annette Cumming. Recently the foundation has supported affordable housing near its headquarters in Jackson, Wyoming, and conservation research by the Great Salt Lake Alliance.
A cap of $225 million in bonds with no more than 9% interest
Nederland formed Mountain Recreation Enterprise to issue the bonds. The enterprise is a government-owned business that allows governments to issue revenue bonds without the voter approval required under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in the Colorado Constitution.
The town approved a cap of $225 million on the bonds at an interest rate that cannot exceed 9% with a final due date of no more than 40 years. Exact details of the bonds will become clear once underwriters sell the bonds on the market.
At least two Denver law firms that specialize in public finance — Butler Snow and Kutak Rock — are working with Eldora to help bring the bonds to market. Attorneys for both firms declined to comment about the bonding plan.
It is uncommon for a small community — Nederland has about 1,500 residents — to use municipal bonds to acquire a business. But more rural communities are using municipal bonds for housing projects.
The town of Vail — with a budgeted plan to spend nearly $160 million in 2026, the most in the town’s 58-year history — collected $126 million from a municipal bond sale last year for construction of a 268-unit housing project. The housing revenue bonds — with a long-term interest cost of $387 million — will be paid back with rental revenue from the town-owned units.
Gunnison County last year issued about $117 million in municipal bonds — with an average interest rate around 5.2% and due as late as 2059 — to pay for its new deed-restricted Whetstone Community Housing project, which will provide homes for as many as 350 local workers.
Representatives from Nederland did not respond to emails and calls seeking clarity on the next steps on the bonding plan. The town late last year said it was a “quiet period” as it negotiated with Powdr on the Eldora sale. It is unclear if that due diligence quiet period is ongoing.
The town’s 152-page “indenture of trust” document details how the bond dollars would be distributed among different funds, including accounts for capital expenditure, capital maintenance, administrative costs, debt service, surplus and others.
The bonds would set aside $10 million as a “rainy day” fund, which would help it weather seasons like this one when snowfall is fleeting. The town also plans to invest at least $2 million a year in capital maintenance.
The draft purchase agreement approved by the Nederland trustees leans on the pass deal with Alterra Mountain Co. that allows unlimited access to Ikon Pass holders. The plan requires the town to forge a new agreement with Alterra Mountain Co. “on substantially the same terms” as the current agreement with Powdr. Alterra Mountain Co. negotiates each Ikon Pass access agreement individually and the privately held company does not disclose contract details with its more than 50 resort partners.
The deal also requires the transfer of the Forest Service Special Use Permit. Powdr in 2019 secured approval from the Roosevelt National Forest to develop 62 acres of new ski terrain in Eldora’s Jolly Jug Glades as well as the transfer of water rights in the state water court.
The revenue bonding debt will be paid solely from revenues generated at Eldora and will not be considered a Nederland debt or backed by property taxes, sales taxes or the town’s general fund. The town of Nederland has an operating budget of $3.2 million for 2026. Once the bonds are paid back, the town anticipates using resort revenues to invest in local improvements, like sidewalks.
At the same Jan. 20 meeting, the trustees renewed a contract with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, committing $931,269 to pay for three deputies, a law enforcement tech and animal control officer through 2026. Nederland has paid the county sheriff for police services since 2022, when it was forced to close its depleted police department.
Nederland also is facing a 30% dip in local sales tax collections after a fire in early October destroyed 18 local businesses in Caribou Village Shopping Center, including a sheriff’s substation. Eldora has stepped in to help some of those businesses maintain operations.
“The financing structure is designed to support long-term local ownership and stewardship of the Eldora Mountain Resort while maintaining the enterprise’s financial independence and protecting the town’s overall fiscal position,” reads a memo to the board of trustees from town manager Jon Cain.