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« Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Gunstock Sees Private Partnership As Path To Its FutureBy Roger Leo 
Belknap County - Gunstock's owner - has made the necessary investments over the years in new lifts, snowmaking and grooming. There's no money or interest in investing taxpayer money in a resort hotel development, however, so if it were to happen, the money would have to come from other sources and that means the private sector, Goddard said. That approach hinges on state permission to allow the public operator to engage a private partner to build a hotel on 100 acres adjoining the ski slopes. A bill to approve such a partnership is working its way through the New Hampshire Legislature, and appears on track for passage. Most of Gunstock Mountain Resort's 1,900 acres cannot be developed for anything but public recreation, anyway, Goddard said, as the area's charter requires the land be used only for that purpose. He said development can occur only on the 100-acre Alpine Ridge area, acquired by Gunstock in 1998, and only with capital invested by a private partner. The public share will come through providing the land and affiliation with a resort that sees about 180,000 skier visits a year. "It's likely we'll have the mechanism in place soon to start working with potential partners," Goddard said last week. His optimism is based on recent approval by the House of allowing Gunstock to enter into a partnership deal, and expected approval in the Senate. Next would come public hearings on the plan and, if the voters concur, the actual partnership. Goddard said the whole process could take two to three years. "With the economy, people are not jumping into new projects," Goddard said, "so we have the luxury of this economic downtime to get our ducks in a row and do our planning." Goddard and Gunstock will not be breaking new ground, in one sense, as public-private partnerships have a long track record in management of public resources, including ski resorts. Each such partnership has its own characteristics. For example, the State of New Hampshire owns two ski areas, Cannon Mountain in Franconia, and Sunapee Mountain Resort in Newbury. Sunapee is managed by Tim and Diane Mueller, operators of Okemo in Vermont and Crested Butte in Colorado, under a long-term lease; New Hampshire continues to operate Cannon directly, but uses revenues from the Sunapee lease to pay for improvements there. In Massachusetts, private operators run Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Princeton, and Blue Hills Ski Area in Milton. Local operators run Wachusett is under a long-term lease, while Ski Campgaw of New Jersey runs Blue Hills under a short-term permit. Goddard is a Gilford native, living now in the house where he grew up on Lake Winnipesaukee. He has been at Gunstock since 1980, first as a bartender working his way through college, then from 1985 as financial manager of a three-year, $10-million modernization project that put in all new lifts, extensive snowmaking additions, trail work and new lodge. He became general manager in 1998 and, since then, managed a $3.8-million expansion in 2003 that moved a fixed-grip summit chair to serve a new terrain park, and added a high-speed summit quad, new trails, and more snowmaking. A third project, the $3.2-million expansion of the beginner area, installation of a new quad and doubling of snowmaking capacity, is under way this summer. What It Means: Gunstock Mountain Resort believes that partnership with a private investor is the only way to finance an expansion into year-round operations it believes vital to sustain its success going forward. Others have made similar partnerships work, and in changing economic conditions they may hold a key to the future for publicly owned resorts of all sizes. « Previous Story | The Industry Report Home Page | Next Story » Comments
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Posted by: Tom Elliott www.friendsofmountsunapee.org | May 19, 2009 07:23 AM
