Intrawest signs agreement to sell Copper Mountain
I just received an email from Gary Rodgers, President and COO of Copper Mountain, announcing that Intrawest is selling Copper Mountain to Powdr Corporation. They expect the sale to close in December, 2009. We have all known that Copper has been for sale for some time. It was not a secret that Fortress, Intrawest’s parent company was having some difficulty after Lehman Brothers, who was their lender, went out of business. Rumors flew around about potential buyers, one of whom was said to be Richard Branson of Virgin Airways. He would have built an interesting ski resort!
Gary Rodger’s email went on to say:
We believe this transaction represents a positive outcome for Copper Mountain and it will provide numerous benefits to Summit County. Powdr Corp operates several ski resorts throughout North America and Copper will be an important addition to their resort family and their first resort property in Colorado.
This winter season it will be “business as usual” and there will be no impacts on the guest experience. The team at Copper will continue to provide the exceptional level of service that our customers, passholders and homeowners have come to expect. All vacation reservations and season pass products will be honored as per usual. This includes all joint marketing initiatives with Steamboat Resort and Winter Park, including the popular Rocky Mountain Super Pass suite of products that provide access to ski and ride at Copper Mountain, Steamboat and Winter Park.
Googling “Powdr Corp“, I found that they own Mt Bachelor in Oregon, Park City Mountain Resort in Utah, Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort in Nevada, Killington and Pico Resorts in Vermont and Boreal and Soda Springs Resorts in California.
We will see how this shakes out and look for it to be a positive experience for Copper Mountain.
I wonder what this means to the potential condo buyers who have been eyeing for Copper properties.. Will they sit by the sidelines because of this shakeup, or will this change give them confidence to buy in Copper now…. Gonna be interesting…
HI Yuna, I was here when Intrawest bought Copper, before the new Center Village was built, and it created a frenzy of speculation. Prices went up immediately but when the new buildings were built, no one wanted the older buildings and they either sat on the market or prices came down. From what I understand, Powdr Corp is not in the real estate business, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be. There is still unused density in the resort, and Intrawest went to a lot of trouble to get that approved a couple of years ago. I assume it was to increase the value of the resort. Of course, they could sell the rights to build to someone else, or perhaps Intrawest retained that right? No details have been announced yet. I doubt very much that it will impact the buyers or sellers at this point. I am an owner there myself and don’t really have a lot of concerns about what it will do to the real estate values. The economy has already had that impact! I am just hopeful that the new owners will spend some money upgrading lifts which will bring more people in and help my rentals.