RANGELEY — Owners of the third-largest ski resort in Maine said Monday that Saddleback won’t open this winter unless they can get $3 million in the next two weeks to replace an old, slow ski lift.
General Manager Chris Farmer said the 51-year-old double-lift that leads to all of its other chairlifts is creating a bottleneck at the base of the mountain. The Berry family wants to replace it with a quad that will move twice as many people an hour.
The new lift would have to be ordered in the next two weeks to be installed in time for the coming winter.
If it isn’t, this ski season is off.
Farmer said the upgrade is vital to keeping the resort profitable.
“We aren’t getting enough skier visits,” he said. “The resort is not economically viable without having a bigger lift to take us out of the base area.”
Saddleback is waiting to hear from three different lenders about a possible $3 million loan to replace the Rangeley Double Chair Lift.
“We felt that if those don’t come together, we had a duty to everybody to be upfront about where we’re at,” Farmer said. “With the amount of assets that the resort has and . . . the growth that can happen with the new lift, (we’re hoping) that a lending institution will step up there and help support this so this asset can remain available to the citizens of Maine and an integral part of the Rangeley economy.”
The resort employs up to 300 people in the winter and has averaged 80,000 to 100,000 skier visits a year.
In their news release, Saddleback’s owners said the resort is the third-largest employer in Franklin County.
Farmer said pursuing the loans has been a long process.
“We’ve been working on this for the past several years to try to find a solution,” he said. “The family has financially supported the operation costs for the past few years.”
Since buying the resort in 2003, the Berry family has spent more than $40 million on improvements, according to published reports. They put the resort, most of its 121 condominiums and 400 acres of land on the market in 2012 for $14 million.
It’s currently for sale for $9.5 million with 2,070 acres.
Saddleback has four aerial ski lifts and one T-bar but the Rangeley Double Chair is “the main vein up the mountain” to the other lifts, Farmer said. Though it continues to pass state inspection, there have been complaints about the wait for the lift and its speed. He believes it deters some skiers from visiting.
“We watch the numbers — good snow years, bad snow years — it isn’t generating enough overall revenue for the resort to be sustainable, so the family has made a decision to reach out, ‘If there’s anybody out there that can help us in the next two weeks . . . ‘” Farmer said.
The Berrys are not pursing any fundraising or crowd-sourcing avenues, he said.
A decision will be made in two weeks about opening for the season. If there is no skiing this winter, season pass holders will be refunded and vendors paid. The resort will also continue to host weddings and other events.
Greg Sweetser, executive director at Ski Maine, said the state sees about 1.3 million ski visits in an average year. He was disappointed to hear Monday’s announcement.
“We need everybody in the state of Maine to be operating and thriving because Maine is a well-known destination,” Sweetser said. “Certainly, obviously, my hope is that they’re going to be able to work out those details and solve this immediate problem that they have.”
Executive Director Karen Ogulnick at the Rangeley Lakes Chamber of Commerce was optimistic.
“I think that many people are working very hard to replace that lift and keep it going,” she said. “It brings a tremendous number of people to the town and it’s important to the town.”
Online reaction ranged from “Nooooooooo.” (Megan York on Facebook) to it’s about time.
“It’s been clear since the Barry’s (sic) bought the mountain that the Chair of Tears, er, the Rangeley double chair desperately needs replacement,” Kris Kucera wrote at SunJournal.com. “On a weekend? It’s 20 minutes or more just to get on the 11-minute-long lift, which is essentially the only gateway to the rest of the mountain. As I’ve been saying to management for over a decade, run the numbers. Looks like their accountant finally did it for them.”
kskelton@sunjournal.com
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