Why this small town in Colorado wants to buy Eldora Mountain Ski Resort

You can hear talk about it just about everywhere you go in Nederland. The outsized idea of a town of 1500 people buying its biggest employer, Eldora Ski Area.

"All the people who work up there live down here anyway. So it's like we've already been running it. So if we can pull it off and get the management and all the little details fixed, I think it would be great," said John Thompson, owner of the Mountain Man Outdoors Store. 

Thompson says he's more positive than negative about the idea. People in his shop at the time were pumped up about it as well.

But figuring it all out is another matter.

"Any minnow can swallow a whale if you take the right piece of it, and I think at the end of the day we just have to make sure we go step by step and do the next right thing," said town manager Jon Cain. Cain and elected city leaders started looking at the idea of buying Eldora Ski Area last year when its owner, Powdr, decided to put it up for sale. Cain believes the town does have the knowledge to do it. Local people already run the day-to-day operations.

"We have so many people who live here who have such expertise in different areas that the best way that we can be successful is to bring people into the equation as we can."

The town signed a term sheet to buy the ski area on July 8. But there's a lot ahead. The town will have to approve municipal revenue bonds to finance the sale. They plan to use revenue bonds, which in Colorado are often used in enterprise funds.

"And what it does is it creates a firewall between the town and the enterprise funds," said Cain. They believe the annual profits from the ski area will be enough to pay back the bonds at 6 to 8 % interest. They hope to set aside two years' worth of profits, which they believe will be about $5 million a year, to have a $10 million cushion to deal with bad snow years.

The town would eventually become the employer, although over the first two years it would still have an operating arrangement with Powdr. They will also partner with 303 Ski, a group of Front Range ski industry veterans, to do financial modeling and assess operations.

At an informational meeting Thursday night at the Nederland Community Center, there was a lot of support from townspeople, but a lot of hard questions, too.

Rich Orman told town leaders, "I don't buy that this won't cost the town money that it won't cost the taxpayers money." He worried about the town taking on the job of employing the hundreds of workers. "Town employees will need town personnel to onboard them, to offboard them, to give them benefits."

Others worried about debt, wondering what would happen with a rise in interest rates. The town is talking about creating more worker housing, and there's discussion about potentially getting the US Forest Service, which owns much of the land, to permit summer use, adding to the potential revenue stream with other activities like mountain biking.

But there's also a mix of land, including land in private trusts on some of the property.

Town leaders won't discuss the negotiated price, citing a non-disclosure agreement with Powdr. But last year, Arapahoe Basin Ski Area sold for $105 million. They hope to close this deal in October, with a lot yet to be figured out as Nederland takes a bite of a whale of a project.

Nederland is located about 43 miles northwest of Denver.