$496 million in building permits pulled in Vail
VAIL, Colo. -- Construction permits for nearly a half-billion dollars were pulled last year in Vail, most of at the base of the ski lifts. About 70 percent of the total was explained in four projects, and a majority of it falls under the heading of redevelopment.
The largest project underway is a $110 million condo and fractional project called the Ritz-Carlton Residences being built by ski area operator Vail Resorts Inc. The next largest is a $104 million project called Solaris, which is replacing a late-1960s style condo, office, and retail complex. Down the list further is an $89 million Four Seasons, which is to have condos and fractional units.
The Vail Daily explains that there's more where that came from. For example, Vail Resorts is briskly moving forward on plans for a new $1 billion project called Ever Vail, which would replace a gas station, an aging office building and other properties. Several other major redevelopment projects are also in the planning and review pipeline.
Dream come true for those who love snow
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS, Colo. -- By now, the big winter was supposed to be over, turning to drought. But the U.S. Weather Service was wrong, wrong, wrong! The snowfall total this season at the Steamboat ski area has now pushed past 300 inches, with additional snow falling rapidly in the early days of February.
The Steamboat Pilot & Today found both people who love and hate the prodigious powder. Brian Bonsell, a hotel worker and avid surfer, had decamped Hawaii several weeks before. "In order to leave there, I had to come to a place like this," he told the newspaper. "I always wanted to live where it just snows every day."
Riding that much powder was, he said, like riding waves.
Snow fell on 80 percent of the first 73 days of the ski season at Steamboat.
Real estate volume sets record in Telluride area
TELLURIDE, Colo. -- Buoyed by several sales of large ranches on the mesas above Telluride, the real estate market in the Telluride last year reached $756 million. Although paltry by standards of the Vail and Aspen areas, where sales last year remained above $2 billion, it nonetheless is a 4 percent gain over Telluride's previous record year.
Just the same, some real estate agents are thinking that 2008 could be lower. "The national slowdown hasn't flushed people out of our market by any means," said Jim Lucarelli of Real Estate Affiliates, although "phones aren't ringing as steadily or robustly as we may be used to."
The view from Telluride is that, relative to Vail and Aspen, it still remains a bargain. All things are relative, of course. The lowest priced single-family home in Telluride during the last several years was $1,076,000.
Slipping dollar expected to help tourism in Park City
PARK CITY, Utah -- The slipping value of the dollar is resulting in more foreign visitors to Park City. International ski pass sales are up 20 percent this year, reports Bill Malone, executive director of the Park City Chamber/Bureau, although sales were also up 16 percent last year. Malone, according to the Park City Record, is projecting an increase in visitor nights this year, and also an uptick in real-estate sales, after a year of declining sales last year.
California resort says no to tobacco smoke
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. -- Heavenly Mountain has banned smoking on chairlifts and in lift lines. The ban follows complaints from several Heavenly customers, reports the Tahoe Daily News. One customer, Diana Woodbury, complained that she had an asthma attack after riding in a chairlift behind a cigar-smoker, "My throat and lungs are raw from coughing, my lungs hurt, and I had an asthma attack," she said.
The Tahoe Daily News reports several Tahoe-Truckee resorts restrict smoking to specified areas.
Olympics planners take aim at carbon footprint
WHISTLER, B.C. -- Olympic organizers are tracing the carbon footprint of the games to be held in 2010 in Whistler and Vancouver. The David Suzuki Foundation projects 328,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, some 226,000 tons of them being caused by air travel, the better part of that as the result of spectators flying to and from Vancouver.
In 2002, Salt Lake City was the first Olympic host city to claim carbon neutrality, notes Pique. But the scope of that study was limited. For example, it did not include air travel. The Suzuki group suggests an investment of $4.9 million in "high quality" carbon offsets. Similar carbon offsets were purchased for Salt Lake City and, in 2006, by Turin.
Exum offering winter descents of the Grand
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. -- Exum Mountain Guides is expanding its guided trips to ski descents of Grand Teton during winter. About 10 clients have now completed descent of the mountain during spring.
One potential client is awaiting a weather window to make the trip, but it's not just a matter of phone-in-your-reservations, company officials tell the Jackson Hole News&Guide.
Clients must be very fit physically, explained Nat Patridge, Exum's director of winter programs, but the guides also must feel comfortable with how the client performs in a variety of conditions in very steep terrain. Presumably, he wasn't talking about runs at the ski area.
