Winter Park continued from page 10 enough capital to maintain the resort, to Mayor Wellington Webb. He appointed a task force that looked into possible solutions, including having the city put up some sort of bond issue to fund improvements, or perhaps even selling Winter Park. But Webb and members of the task force didn’t want to sell the resort or ask taxpayers for money, and they started exploring a third option: fi nding a partner in the ski industry to run the resort while still maintaining the WPRA’s agency agreement with the city. Another committee considered pos- sible partnerships, which were narrowed to two frontrunners. Intrawest ultimately got the nod. By December 2002, all of the involved parties had landed on a revision of the original deal agreement between the city and the WPRA. Under the Supplement 7 Agency Agreement, Intrawest would run the resort, making im- provements and decisions about prices, fa- cilities and day-to-day operations, while the WPRA would serve as asset manager rather than operator, working with the company to ensure that its plans benefi ted the city. For the fi rst ten years of the agreement, the city would get $2 million each year from Intrawest. Starting in year eleven, it would get that $2 million plus 3 percent of gross revenues over $33 million. And the payments have come through, totaling more than $78 million through 2022 so far (not all of the information from 2022 has been fi nalized). “The city gets much more money than it ever got in the past, and an amount of money that overwhelmingly grows every year,” Orr says. “Because the revenues over and above the $2 million base are based on gross revenues, not net revenues, it doesn’t matter what the expenses are. It matters what the gross revenues are.” Intrawest also agreed to invest $50 mil- lion in the resort in the fi rst ten years; De- Frange says it invested even more than that. Having a partner that deeply understood the ski industry and had the equity to make improvements was key, he adds: Intrawest provided expertise in running resorts that the WPRA didn’t have, and the association gave it discretion on improvements and operations as long as the resort remained competitive with other ski areas. “We did things every year that would up- 12 grade the resort,” DeFrange recalls. “Before that, we were trying to fi gure out, what are the things we absolutely have to do to make sure we’re still safe, and try to add new things. But we weren’t able to keep up until we brought in this new structure.” Visitors and employees immediately noticed the improved experience, he adds. Rather than working to keep old equipment running, new equipment could be brought in. Orr likens the decision to proceed with the partnership to the origins of the WPRA fi fty years earlier: Both times, people stepped up to help the place they love, with the WPRA and the city working to engineer an agreement unique in the country. “You had people in Denver who cared about the resort so much and wanted it to be a success and continue to be a great as- Gary DeFrange oversaw the evolution of Winter Park into the modern resort it is today. say for resort facilities, including approval of improvements. According to Orr, one of the WPRA’s prime duties is to make sure that if, for some reason, Alterra stops managing Winter Park, the city will still have a fi nancially viable resort; the company can’t load the resort with debt and then leave the city hanging. DeFrange credits the original 1950 agree- ment with keeping the resort around, and the new agreement with making it what it is today. Since 2002, every part of Winter Park has seen some kind of upgrade, DeFrange says. The village at the base was designed to look like it evolved over time rather than being added in the 21st century. There is expanded DeFrange with a plan to operate passenger service to Winter Park from Union Station during ski season, using unused passenger cars from the Chicago area that typically sat neglected all winter. DeFrange raised the $3 million needed to upgrade the tracks and platforms to modern safety and comfort standards, and worked with RTD, Union Pacifi c Railroad and Bur- lington Northern to get permission from each entity to use its facilities for the project. To this day, DeFrange encourages every- one traveling from Denver to Winter Park to use the train. Rather than sitting in traffi c, people can enjoy a scenic ride. Those who fl y in to Denver International Airport can even take the A Line to Union Station, then the set that they took action and wanted to do whatever needed to be done to assure the resort’s success over time,” she says. “The words ‘fi rst class’ are not in any of the agreements,” Orr adds, “but that’s gen- erally the sense that we use when we think about how the resort is being managed.” Even as Intrawest was absorbed by Al- terra Mountain Company in 2017, the agree- ment continued. The development side of the operation is governed by a master plan that dictates what kinds of projects can go on which parcels. If development is purely private, such as condos or retail, the WPRA has less oversight. It has more of a lodging, restaurant and retail capabilities, as well as more skiable terrain and lifts. As a side benefi t, in 2018 Winter Park became part of the Ikon Pass offered by Al- terra, which competes with Vail’s Epic Pass. DeFrange even brought a train back to Winter Park. Since 1940, generations of Coloradans had taken the Ski Train to the resort on weekends. But in 2009, citing insurance costs and uncertain conditions at Union Station, the Anschutz Co., the train’s most recent owner, stopped the service and sold the equipment to a subsidiary of the Canadian National Railway Co. But then an Amtrak conductor contacted Winter Park Express to the ski area without ever getting in a car, he notes. While Denver skiers benefi t from the many improvements at Winter Park, the city itself benefi ts from the deal because the money from the deal goes into improving Denver parks. The city decides what to do with that money independent of the WPRA. Center City Councilmember Debbie Ortega was on council at the time the origi- nal 1994 agreement was renegotiated; she’s also been a member of the Winter Park trust in the past, overseeing how funds generated from the resort are used in Denver. She high- lights the dirt bike project and the terrain park at Ruby Hill Park as examples of how Winter Park funds were used. They also helped fund trail enhance- ments along the South Platte River and the restoration of the electric fountain at City Park. General park maintenance and upgrades get a boost from Winter Park, too. This year, $1.2 million went toward citywide walk improvements and $800,000 to park rehabilitation. Mayor Michael Hancock’s proposed 2023 budget indicates that Winter Park payments to the city for 2021 totaled $3,695,143; in 2022, the city collected $5,560,000. The next budget recommends how $3,220,000 in Winter Park funds should be used. And investments in the resort itself con- tinue under Sky Foulkes, who took over as president of Winter Park when DeFrange retired. The resort broke ground on an employee housing project that will provide places to stay on the mountain for over 300 employees. DeFrange notes that the prime real estate could have been used for condos, but because of the agreement structure and the community culture at Winter Park, it’s going to help employees instead. While as a private company, Alterra can’t share skier numbers, Winter Park remains one of the most popular of the state’s thirty- plus ski areas. Both DeFrange and Orr says they ad- mire how an agreement made in 2002 still works today. “Everyone who was involved in the pro- cess really did a pretty remarkable job of crafting a set of documents that have worked really well,” Orr says. “It’s still very near and dear, I think, to a lot of people, whether they ski there or just the pride in the fact that this is something that the city started and has, through a variety of arrangements, been enabled to keep as a great asset — not just for Denver residents, but for people of Colorado and everybody who comes to Colorado to ski.” Winter Park’s contributions to Denver open space and the fact that it’s been home to the National Sports Center for the Disabled for more than fi fty years make it much more than a ski resort, DeFrange suggests. Ortega agrees that Winter Park’s history is something for Denver residents to be proud of. If people ski there, they’re helping give back while still enjoying some of the best skiing in the country. “It was a great place for me to be for twenty years, and it’s still a great place there,” De- Frange says. “They continue to do a great job.” Email the author at [email protected]. NOVEMBER 3-9, 2022 WESTWORD | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | westword.com COURTESY OF GARY DEFRANGE COURTESY OF ALTERRA MOUNTAIN RESORTS
