Shocking News Involving Park City Mountain Resort

[Cobra1950]

Just got back home from nice 2 week trip to Marriott Grand Chateau and Mountainside in Park City. The local newspaper, the Park Record
( www.parkrecord.com ) headlined today PMCR is suing Talisker, a company that has bought up over a number of years the land the ski slopes at Park City operate on (PMCR reportedly owns the ski lifts, base lodge and parking and improvements supporting skiing, while Talisker owns the skiing real estate). Most of the land is old silver mining claims which are now inactive.
Due to what appears to be a falling out over land rental terms, PMCR says unless land rents are renegotiated, they will not open for skiing in the 2012-2013 ski season!
Needless to say, both Marriott Mountainside and Marriott Summittwatch (where we own two weeks) will have a serious problem going forward should this happen and both are tied directly to access to PCMR.
Hopefully this will be settled long before next ski season as we are booked in at Summittwatch for Christmas week 51, will not be much fun to have to drive up to Deer Valley or tussle with the snowboard heavy Canyons Resort down valley

 

[K2Quick]

Sounds like nothing more than negotiating tactics. Talisker probably just wants more lucrative lease terms which could be fair. PCMR (along with pretty much every other resort on the continent) has raised its lift tickets to obscene levels over the past decade and the landlord wants a piece of that. There is no way I'd ever consider paying anywhere near the current walk-up price of $98 for a PCMR lift ticket.

 

[hipslo]

Details are here: http://www.supportpcmr.com/

No way will PCMR close. The lawsuit was apparently filed to deprive Talisker of the leverage they had sought in these negotiations by claiming that PCMR has not effectively exercised a long term renewal option under the lease. PCMR is seeking that the court declare that they have effectively exercised the renewal right.

One way or another, I would imagine that there will be increased collaboration between Canyons and PCMR, including the possibility of a connection between the two resorts by ski lift, as they are now separated by a single ridge line that I understand is privately owned by Talisker/ Canyons. And Talisker is also trying to gain approval for a new gondola connecting Canyons and Solitude. So if this were ever to come to pass, we could ski directly from Mountainside or Summit Watch to the Canyons and then on to Solitude, which would be awesome.


The details of the business arrangement will of course need to be worked out first, and this lawsuit seems to be PCMR's effort to hold those negotiations from a position of strength, rather than one of weakness, so far as I can tell.

 

[Cobra1950]

Well hopefully this will end up being a positive with an interconnect, which is long overdue here. Lift ticket buys are best in SLC ski shops, although not much of a discount for Deer Valley, but at least something.
I agree that there will be a rejection of ticket prices at some point, or some agressive discounting of non locals season tickets by resorts or something to avoid a fall in skiier/boarder days.

 

[alchook]

One thing I've learned about Park City is that everyone is suing everyone. It seems to be the way they do business. I, frankly, wound up suing a developer to get my earnest money back on a condo they didn't complete.

Talisker at least appears to be shaking things up some. Everyone's been talking about interconnects for at least a decade. It would be nice to see something happen.

As far as lift ticket prices go, they're certainly a lot higher than they used to be. On the other hand, I'm not waxing nostalgic over the good old days of 30 minute lift lines or 20 minute rides up the mountain.

 

[hipslo]

Well hopefully this will end up being a positive with an interconnect, which is long overdue here. Lift ticket buys are best in SLC ski shops, although not much of a discount for Deer Valley, but at least something.
I agree that there will be a rejection of ticket prices at some point, or some agressive discounting of non locals season tickets by resorts or something to avoid a fall in skiier/boarder days.

I always buy the EZ Access pass at PCMR. It is only available to Utah property owners, but timeshares qualify. For $675, I get a 10 day pass ($67.50 per day). We generally only ski 5 to 6 days, but they give you credit for the unused days on next years' pass. And the best thing is that the pass includes the "Fast Tracks" feature, which allows you to access the "express lanes" at 5 or 6 of the busiest lifts, and never wait in a lift line.

I think the walk up daily rate for a Fast Tracks pass is around $110 per day, so the $67.50 is a great deal.

 

[hipslo]

Talisker at least appears to be shaking things up some. Everyone's been talking about interconnects for at least a decade. It would be nice to see something happen.

Agreed. While they seem to be a bit overly aggressive for an out of town development company, if they can actually get these interconnects accomplished as a result, then the ends may very well justify the means.