Mt. Ashland gives expansion costs
With its 71-acre ski area expansion in litigation limbo, the Mt. Ashland Association recently gave the Ashland City Council a plan for how it will fund the project when the time comes.
The association presented an expansion business plan to the city Aug. 9. On Sept. 6, officials will explain how the organization intends to raise an initial $3.7 million for the first phase of an expansion.
Increased use of the ski area will help the expansion pay for itself, officials contend. The ski area expects 10,000 additional visits the first year after the expansion, 15,000 in years two and three and 25,000 in the fourth and fifth years. Mt. Ashland Ski Area General Manager Kim Clark said these numbers are lower than what the U.S. Forest Service included in a 2003 environmental impact statement. For the past five years, the ski area visitor numbers hovered around 100,000 each season.
The bulk of the $3.7 million cost includes about $1 million for new chair lifts and close to $1 million in building, parking and grading costs. The plan calls for a fundraising campaign to pay for the first expansion phase. It further projects revenue coming from the additional visitors will raise nearly $1 million more than the operational costs. It does not outline the specifics of the costs or the revenue.
The first phase of the expansion will be the largest. The second will include infrastructure improvements, and the final phase includes building a new lodge on the upper mountain. Clark said the final two phases will come later as the funds to pay for them are available.
The ski area's proposed business plan addresses only the first phase of the three. Clark said the ski area first plans to clear trees for the 16 new ski trails and add one fixed-grip triple chair lift. It then plans to build an interim lodge for extra visitors until it builds a new one. Building a warming hut at the top of the new chair lift and additional parking are also included in the first phase.
Clark said creating the runs is the top priority to draw in more skiers.
"Without the lifts and runs, it doesn't make any difference if we expand the parking lot," he said.
Despite the association's optimism, the two-page business plan has at least one city councilor skeptical that it is not detailed enough.
"We're anticipating getting quite a bit more information than what they've given us," Ashland City Councilor Kate Jackson said.
Clark said the business plan might seem brief, but its brevity protects the association from giving away business secrets to competitors.
"The Mt. Ashland Association is a private business, and we need to remain competitive with other businesses," Clark said. "We don't need to let everyone know what our hiring wages or practices are when we're competing against Subway or any other winter job."
The expansion proposal is held up because of two lawsuits filed by environmental groups claiming a 2004 Forest Service record of decision approving the expansion violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not adequately considering the effects of erosion and other environmental harm it could cause to the city's municipal watershed.
The association claims the ski area will not raise ticket prices beyond the annual inflationary rate to keep up with fuel and employment costs.
Some locals are dubious. Paul Copeland, who helped draft last week's council resolution involving the ski area, thinks the Mount Ashland Association is losing its advantage as a community ski area by not sharing its detailed plan with the city. The resolution Copeland helped draft would have asked the ski area and Forest Service to postpone timber clearing in the expansion area until an appeals process finished in the lawsuit against the Forest Service. The resolution died before the council. For Copeland, the skeleton business plan is not nearly enough to prove economic feasibility.
"These are just big round numbers," Copeland said. "It seems like they plucked them out of thin air. It makes you think they're just winging it."
Despite cynicism, the ski area will have its day to prove to the city the proposed expansion's viability. However, the Mt. Ashland Association still has to wait until U.S. District Court Judge Owen Panner rules in the case against the Forest Service before it can move forward.
"It's all a moot point unless we get a decision from the judge one of these days," Clark said.
Staff writer Alan Panebaker can be reached at 482-3456 x 227 or apanebaker@dailytidings.com.
