Click to enlarge: Antelope Butte(2), Sleeping Giant (2)
Antelope Butte, Wyoming (2007)
Antelope Butte is a day ski area located in the Bighorn Mountains of Wyoming. It has a 960-foot vertical and encompasses about 500 acres of land, all of which is owned by the Forest Service. The area has a daylodge, maintenance building and two double chairlifts and operated under the terms of a Forest Service Special Use Permit. The ski area was closed when we appraised it, nearly all of the equipment had been removed and the Forest Service had title to what remained (essentially, the buildings and chairlifts). Closser Associates was retained to value the ski area for the Forest Service and to determine its highest and best use. The property was to be valued with the Special Use Permit in place, and also without the permit, which would require the removal/salvage of buildings, site improvements and lifts and returning the property “to nature".
Market research for this assignment included visiting seven small ski areas in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and interviewing the owners; researching sales and offers for sale of small ski areas in the region, interviewing several brokers who currently had ski areas listed for sale and interviewing local government units regarding their interest in operating the area.
Sleeping Giant, Wyoming (2007)
Sleeping Giant is a day ski area located about 50 miles west of Cody, Wyoming, just outside the eastern portal of Yellowstone National Park. Among the oldest ski areas in America, Sleeping Giant opened for the 1936/1937 season. As the years went by Sleeping Giant suffered from a lack of investment, in spite of an effort to modernize in 1993. At that time, a chairlift was installed and the base lodge was modernized and expanded. Ultimately these improvements were insufficient to reverse the trend of declining visits and this, combined with actions by the Forest Service to condemn an old T-bar, forced the ski area to close in 2004. After failed efforts by several potential buyers to purchase the area without success, the closed ski area was purchased by a local investor and donated to a non-profit foundation. The foundation is soliciting charitable contributions to modernize and reconstruct the ski area; after which the area will be operated as a non-profit organization, will have no debt, and will only have to earn an operating profit to be financially feasible.
Closser Associates was retained to appraise the value of the donated assets, which included lifts, a day lodge, furnishings, fixtures and equipment, and a Forest Service Special Use Permit. Because the ski area was closed at the time, the appraisal was based on sales of similar small ski areas in the region.
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Marquette, Michigan 49855 (906)228-9133 bclosser@closserassociates.com