Mayflower Mountain Resort, the fledgling billion dollar development near Park City, Utah, made headlines early this week on two fronts. First, the proposed resort’s owner reached an agreement with Alterra Mountain Company for Deer Valley to continue leasing a chunk of land on Bald Mountain for 199 years. Second, Mayflower held a media gathering, revealing grand plans for its first lifts to open in 2021.
With the new lease between Deer Valley and Mayflower’s parent companies, the existing Mayflower lift and terrain will remain part of Deer Valley regardless of what happens with Mayflower Mountain Resort.
Most of the 5,600 acres Extell Development of New York City has pieced together is currently undeveloped. That could change shortly with three new hotels, 400 acres of ski runs and multiple chairlifts above the Jordanelle Reservoir. Whether those lifts will be Deer Valley green and disallow snowboarders is an open question. There are a lot of parallels with Moonlight Basin, Montana throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Initially a modest development with a couple access lifts operated under contract by Big Sky Resort, Moonlight turned into a ski resort of its own before eventually being integrated back into Big Sky’s ticket products and operations.
Regardless of who operates the lifts, Mayflower could be big. Current plans call for five main lifts and two surface lifts, not counting a potential connector lifts to Deer Valley. Extell is commencing road and infrastructure work this fall with potential lift contracts a year away. The company has roughly two years to sort out whether it wants to be independent, partner more broadly with Alterra or perhaps another ski industry player.
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Do we think that this might influence Deer Valley’s upgrade plans? If they really want a ’21-’22 opening, then could we expect a Mayflower upgrade from Alterra in 2020 or 2021?
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This is really poor terrain – low snowfall and bad exposure. Every run will need snowmaking. And not really a pretty area – scrub brush.
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Exactly right. Just like Moonlight, this is a late-cycle real-estate play that isn’t really about the skiing and I would be willing to bet good money that it will be sold for pennies on the dollar to Alterra within 10 yrs of opening. At least Moonlight had good skiing, good snow and a good northerly aspect. Mayflower will have none of that.
Pretty smart by Alterra if you ask me. Allows them to dramatically increase their terrain with someone else footing most of the bill.
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Who’s going to manufacture the lifts here? Guessing on deer valleys history, i expect doppelmayr.
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Looks like at least five or so high speed quads will be the workhorses of this hill.
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The new lifts could most likely be Doppelmayr due to close distance, or maybe some can be relocated. I don’t know about Leitner-Poma though.
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In the article i looked at they said everything will be brand new.
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Doppelmayr being the manufacturer would also maintain consistency with the existing Deer Valley fleet.
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I worry that alot of that terrain will be low elevation non-north facing terrain. If they do not get an interconnect deal with DV done then that could significantly impact the real estate value.
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That’s ok, let it impact the RE value. It’s already too high.
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I think Mayflower Mountain Resort will fold without being a part of Deer Valley. Look at what happened with Spanish Peaks or Moonlight Basin when they tried being independent, while neighboring Deer Crest has been successful as a part of Deer Valley. To have a profitable operation, they would need quality terrain and snowfall, which is a problem at their low elevation. In my opinion, their best option would be to build a nice, luxurious village and any real estate they would like in addition to a couple of detachable quads. They should also build a gondola that can access the Mayflower lift (which I’m sure would go detachable) and the rest of the higher elevation terrain (like Jordanelle does for Deer Crest) for poor snow years. Then, have Deer Valley operate all of the lifts so Mayflower can be integrated into the resort.
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With Deer Valley passes also being honored at Mayflower.
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I think it should be called Ski Sagebrush!
This resort will be of no interest to powder hounds.
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If you look closely in the first picture, the detachable terminals are spacejet models.
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