Vail Resorts to take over Canyons in Park City Utah!

BIG NEWS in Park City this week!

Vail Resorts president and CEO Rob Katz announced Wednesday that the company had signed a long-term lease deal to operate the Canyons Ski Resort. Toronto-based Talisker Corp currently owns the ski resort and has leased the resort to Vail Resorts for 50 years, with an option for six 50-year extensions.

Vail Resorts’ Epic Pass will now include the Canyons Ski Resort in Park City, Utah.

The very popular Epic Pass offered by Vail Resorts affords it's passholders unlimited skiing and riding with no blackout dates at Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Keystone, Heavenly, Northstar, Kirkwood, Afton Alps, Mt. Brighton, Arapahoe Basin, Eldora, and now includes Canyons Resort in Utah. The Epic Pass will replace the Canyons Season Pass and get this, it will cost less! The Canyons season pass was more than $800, compared to $689 for the unlimited Epic Pass.

The heated "Orange Bubble" chairlift at Canyons Resort 

At 4,000 acres, Canyons Resort is Utah’s largest Ski and Snowboard resort with something for everyone, from award-winning restaurants, luxurious lodging properties, and activities for the whole family to enjoy. The Canyons Resort has undergone many great changes over the recent years with about $75 million in capital improvements, including the new orange bubble-covered heated 4-person chairlift, a redesigned gondola, new terrain, a new zipline and a huge upgrade to the summer fun with their new lift-serviced bike park. Vail Resorts will be responsible for any future capital improvement projects. The resort was named as a TOP TEN ski resort in North America by the readers of SKI Magazine last year. It was a big jump to #10 from the previous position of #20 only three years prior.

Essentially Vail Resorts will take over all resort operations, while the resort’s developable real estate — about 4 million square feet — will remain in Talisker’s hands. Talisker was the developer of the master plan at Deer Valley's Empire Pass area and has developed some of the neighborhoods there as well. Talisker is also the developer of the Tuhaye private gated golf community just outside Park City overlooking the Jordanelle Reservoir. Both Talisker and Vail Resorts put in bids back in 2006 to buy the Canyons Ski Resort from American Skiing Company, with Talisker winning the purchase. It is interesting that today we will now have Vail return by leasing the resort from Talisker. Although not an experienced ski resort operations company, the last few years have been quite positive for the Canyons Resort. The new relationship with Vail Resorts is being seen by many in town as exciting and positive news.

Aerial photo of The Colony at White Pine Canyon

Real estate values have been rising in Park City again and strong news such as this will only fuel the real estate recovery. There are quite a few current properties for sale at Canyons Resort including ski-in, ski-out condos and the ultra stunning mountain luxury homes in The Colony. The Colony is a private, gated community of ski-in, ski-out homesites that average about 6 acres in size. Talisker has a lot of amazing developable property at the base village of the Canyons and additionally much more further up the mountain near the base of the Tombstone chairlift and the Red Pine Lodge. Who knows, maybe we will see a similar on-mountain community created in the upcoming years, maybe something like the Empire Pass area of Deer Valley? Either way, this appears to be good news for the entire Park City community and should be very interesting to watch it unfold.