Downhill is looking up all the way

Vermont Business Magazine, Jun 01, 1998

The Killington-Pico ski resorts and associated businesses represent a major source of both winter seasonal and year-round employment. The second home community has brought benefits in terms of qualified buyers, qualified volunteers and sometimes new businesses. Killington Road is not only commercially active, it offers one of the state's very few opportunities for city-style night life. And the taxes taken in by the state are a major plus -- for many communities around the state, thanks to Act 60.

Or possibly no thanks to Act 60, from the point of view of towns like Sherburne (which contains the Killington village area).

Any account of the Rutland region's economy for 1997-98 would be incomplete without mention of the furor in mountain communities over the new school tax system, with its statewide commercial property taxation. The issue has already spurred a corrections bill in this year's Legislature and may spark other actions if, as critics contend, the new system amounts to killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

As far as skier visits go, the El Nino winter, with several months in a row of above-normal temperatures, of course cut into ski area revenues. But no one would have guessed that seeing the pace of development in and around the Killington resort.

The biggest piece was completion this spring of the $12 million Killington Grand Resort Hotel, which will put visitors at slopeside or next to the golf course. The American Skiing Company is promoting mountain bike tours that take in several such "Grand" hotels (there is another at Mount Snow in Dover), and they tie in with other summer programs like the tennis school, golf school, the Merrill Hiking Center, and family entertainment.

With the Baby Boomers old enough to have children in tow, appealing to families has become a major concern for ski areas, especially for resorts seeking a year-round presence. (The demographics also bring hope to Rutlanders who want to see more mountain visitors at the downtown Plaza cineplex, at the Diamond Run Mall, at cultural events, and investigating specialty stores -- all of which is beginning to happen as Amtrak ski arrivals filter through Rutland.)

This summer, guests at the 200-room Grand Hotel will get "fun spot" tokens to use for the above-mentioned activities, for Adventure Camps or day care, and for the attractions of an Adventure Park. Two water slides, a mobile climbing wall, a wetted artificial turf slope for those learning to ski, Pico's alpine slide, miniature golf, driving range, and bungee trampoline jumping will attempt to find something for everyone.

Even teens and young adults are targeted: Killington is buying a 34-year-old Wobbly Barn, a notable venue for rock concerts along Killington Road. It has not been lost on the resort that glowing reviews of its night life in Ski, Skiing and Snow Country magazines have helped introduce a younger generation to the area, as have events like a snowboarding challenge this past winter shown on ESPN.

Large-scale investments have a way of leveraging other financial commitments. Gubernatorial candidate (and vocal Act 60 opponent) Bernard Rome, who owns the Ski Shack complex on Route 4 among $8-10 million worth of mountain properties, is talking about building a $12-15 million arts center on 40 acres he has recently acquired at the corner of Route 4 and Killington Road.

Not just a performance space, the facility would house artist retreats at affordable rates, offer Elderhostels for senior citizens, and provide seasonal housing for ski-related employees. Rome envisions the center as a break-even venture, not a moneymaking enterprise, to give something back to the community.

Add Killington's proposed $50 million "revolution," Rome's project, and the resurgent residential market, and you have the makings of traffic congestion, or even chaos, on Killington Road.

And there could be another $40 million in possible transportation enhancements that would help cope with success -- a counterpart to the resort's high-speed gondola and three dozen lifts, you might say.

More prosaically, there have been extensive negotiations between the American Skiing Company and the state to trade land and create a link between Killington and Pico, plus more snowmaking capacity via Woodward Reservoir in Plymouth.

Relations between the resort and environmentalists and neighbors have been generally amicable. As the Burlington Free Press put it in October, "Vermonters are hardly accustomed to considering Killington a trendsetter in environmental policy, but this negotiation provides an example for preserving Vermont's waters."