To summarize what has happened over that last 2-3 years, apparently Powdr "forgot" to renew it's land lease with Talisker Corp for most of the land used by Park City PCMR. it tried to do so, but it was a few days late. So Talisker said it would lease the land to Vail instead. Vail wants to link the Canyons with PCMR to create the biggest ski playground in North America.
The battle is in court now, and the latest is that PCMR says that if it loses the court case, that it plans to rip out the lifts as it leaves, take it's toys, and go home to sulk and play with it's toys. Of course it's old lease with Talisker says that PCMR will have to leave all items attached to the gound in place if PCMR ceases to lease the land.The last I checked, lifts ARE anchored to the ground. And of course PCMR would have to trespass on it's expired land lease in order to remove the lifts. Vail might have something to say about trespassing.
Here's the best way to keep up to date on the messy details:
http://ski.curbed.com/tags/park-city-mountain-resort
yes yes yes this is very familiar to me (for years). there is way more to the story in that the main feature is PCMR filed against Taliker, and that was a big mistake ... PCMR created a fake, backdated agreement that they submitted to the court and then got caught lying. Litigater being just that, the PCMR crew did the delay tactic which is getting them nowhere. the stupid lift thing is just another blocker that won't really do anything and you are right POWR only owns the parking lot and the base area up to the top of the First Time lift.
the funny thing is in the beginning there was all this rallying around PCMR and that has done a 180 now - most people in Park City are for Vail/Talisker . PCMR turns out to be a case stufy for corporate incompetance apparently. the story is that the CFO had the lease in a bottom drawer in his desk and before the lease expired left PCMR. no one "knew" the lease had to be signed and on the day of the deadline they "couldn't find the lease" lol yeaaaaahhh right. so they made a back dated fake one and got caught on that one during inital depositions and discovery.
they are doomed - and good ridance. my EPIC pass will now work at PCMR.
and the Cummings family that owns PCMR and is basically POWDR? ha - they just bough up Dick Bass' part of Snowbird, so they'll have that. and abandon PCMR.
well at least PCMR will get a major face lift when Vail operates that too.
and the *real* source for this is of course the trusty Park Record
Yup, everything you said is apparently true, and it appears that POWDR's PCMR holdings (at least those on Talsker land) are about to become virtually worthless.
The reason I listed the curbed.com website instead of the Park City Record as a source is that curbed is the easy way to get a pretty complete history of what's happened without having to do much web site searching.
ok so you all know - PCMR is now owned by Talisker/Vail - and yay.
Crush wrote:
ok so you all know - PCMR is now owned by Talisker/Vail - and yay.
Ha. This will continue. PCMR controls the base area. I doubt they'd go so far as to rip out the lifts, but.....it ain't over.
As a recurring visitor to PC and UT property owner pass holder for many years at PCMR, I'm not cheering this.
But I get the corporate expansion of skiing and if I were Vail, and only had the stepchild of Canyons as a foothold in Utah, I'd be all Potter from It's a Wonderful Life too. They realize Canyons sucks, especiallly in comparision to all its neighbors next door and over the ridge (good luck from early March on to have any snow at the Canyons base area). The EPIC pass it ain't.
The Bailey Building and Loan is about to go under. Quick. Wheel me over!
Makes me happier and happier to visit the Mad Rivers and Magics. May they live long and prosper.
FreshPow wrote:
Ha. This will continue. PCMR controls the base area. I doubt they'd go so far as to rip out the lifts, but.....it ain't over.
Well the base area problem actually can be circumvented - all TLH has to do is build a lift down from Iron Mountain at Canyons and that will pretty much link up PCMR and Canyons. Interstingly, this passed season at the base of the Tombstone lift there is a small real-estate shack and on it was a map with a "future lift" that looks like it could be the above, so someone was planning for the future.
PCMR itself has only a few avenues at this point and the most important thing is the upcoming judgement on Jun 19th for TLH's Unlawfull Detainer claim against PCMR - along with the eviction TLH filed against PCMR. Given how Judge Harris has ruled thus far, it is pretty certain this rulling will go against PCMR. At that point I believe it would be trivial for TLH to take it to District Court and get a ruling that PCMR can't operate anymore (you can't operate a business on land you don't have a lease for). PCMR said they are appealing the recent rulling, but to do that they'd have to post around a $15 million bond to cover TLH's possible losses during the appeal, so that is probably out.
Despite the posturing, the best thing is just to sell the base area to TLH/Vail and get on with it. The problem is this all most likely won't be settled in time for the upcoming season so the people that really get hurt are of course the employees of PCMR - and they have no one except their management to blame for it. Jenny Smith should basically be shot at this point.
Well, that might fix the issue about how to access the terrain. It doesn't seem to fix the water rights issue. Without snowmaking water, early season at least would certainly be at risk. If you believe PCMR, they own the water rights that allow snowmaking. However, I do seem to recall a small lake near the bottom of the Jupiter lift that would be on Talisker land.
Crush wrote:
Well the base area problem actually can be circumvented - all TLH has to do is build a lift down from Iron Mountain at Canyons and that will pretty much link up PCMR and Canyons.
that *is* a problem - TLH bought United Park City Mines Company in 2003. UPCM *used* to own the water rights and the majority of the land PCMR sits on, but sold the water rights it in a rather lengthy and litigous process that ended with United Park v. Greater Park 870 P.2d 880 (1993) when GPCC went into default .PCMR inehrited those rights - which are mostly a series of old mining tunnels like the Judge Tunnel Water Line. Up until late 2013 that tunnel was not being used for drinking water because it had too much iron and antimony for drinking water standards. PCMR used this source and maybe some others for their snowmaking operation. That is going to change in the near future and the Judge Tunnel Water Line will be cleaned up and used as a potable water supply.
Push comes to shove, the Park City Municipal Corporation is basically oversees water rights. UPCM continues to own much of the land under Deer Valley and of course PCMR and has rights to build real estate in and around Deer Valley, per the 1999 development agreement between Park City Municipal Corporation and UPCM. I figure with that in place TLH can get something going to give them an alternative source.
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