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Denver PostDenver council OKs Winter Park
pact Tuesday, October 01, 2002 - The Denver
City Council unanimously approved an agreement late Monday that gives a
private developer 76 years to create a destination resort at Winter Park
ski area.
"This has been a half-century odyssey to get us to the point where we
can make Winter Park the best ski area in the world, as it deserves to
be," council President Cathy Reynolds said. "This is a better deal than we thought we would get," Reynolds said.
"And now it's too late to take it back." With the rap of Reynold's gavel, Intrawest was given the reins of
perhaps Denver's most prized possession, a 62-year-old ski hill that hosts
close to 1 million skiers a year but has fallen behind its deep-pocketed
competitors. In return, Intrawest promises to complete $99 million worth of
on-mountain improvements in the next decade. The British Columbia-based
resort developer, which operates 11 ski resorts including Copper Mountain,
also has development rights to 140 city-owned acres at the base of the ski
area. Denver will get $3 million when the deal is completed in the next
couple of weeks. The city also will collect $2 million a year for the next
10 years and then an annual payment of about $2.5 million based on
ski-area revenues. "We should celebrate this day as a turning point for Winter Park," said
Gary Raymond, Intrawest's head of development who has spent the past year
negotiating for a chance to develop the Grand County ski area. Grand County residents outnumbered Denverites at Monday's meeting. Some
addressed the council, urging a quick end to what has been a two-year
search for a path to Winter Park back to prominence in the state's
evolving ski resort business. "Winter Park needs to grow and move forward and diversify its revenue
stream so it can compete head to head with its competitors," said state
Rep. Al White, R-Winter Park, who has owned ski-related businesses in
Winter Park in the last 25 years. Intrawest's chief competitor, Vail Resorts, Intrawest's development
partner at Vail's Keystone ski area, filed suit last week in Delaware
seeking to stop its rival from developing real estate at Winter Park. Vail and Intrawest signed an agreement at Keystone in 1994 that
prohibited either resort company from developing ski resort real estate in
four counties, including Grand County, unless the company acquired a
"controlling interest" of the ski resort. "We think the litigation is completely without merit," Intrawest lawyer
Michael McCarthy said. |