Belleayre Redux

In his budget address today, Governor Andrew Cuomo will call for the Belleayre Mountain Ski Center in the Catskills to come under the purview of the Olympic Regional Development Authority, based in Lake Placid.  This is from the budget document released a short time ago:

The Budget authorizes the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) to enter into an agreement to transfer the operations of the Belleayre Mountain Ski Center to ORDA at the close of the 2011-12 ski season. ORDA  will allow for more efficient management of Belleayre operations utilizing their expertise in the ski industry.

Thanks Adk.

The other shoe Cuomo dropped is he also wants to simultaneously cut DEC funding 16%.

Sorry Auss. Looks like a nightmare scenario for you.

This was posted in the Watershed Post today-- with details from the budget:
http://www.watershedpost.com/2012/its-official-cuomo-wants-orda-run-belleayre-mountain-next-year

Not sure what to think about it all being a Catskills skier who's sympathetic to all sides (and doesn't want to tick any faction off with a comment...). All I can say is Belleayre's not been doing a ton of snow-making, but they're suffering from the same problems as most other hills in that regard. And perhaps this will make it run more efficiently and help the region rather than languishing in ski-land limbo.

I figured this day would come and i certainly hope I'm wrong but this could be the begining of the end of Orda.

The question is not how much the budget of DEC was reduced but how much the budget of Orda was increased to cover the increaed costs of managing another ski area specifically one that loses money.  Does anyone know if what the change to the Orda budget was?

Also very important is how much money is the local town or county where Bell is located is going to kick into Orda's budget as North Elba does. I think i recall North Elba gives Orda close to $1M annually.  

I can't imagine the local towns here contributing much. Belle is technically in Ulster County in the town of Shandaken but also borders Delaware Co, the town of Middletown. All of the above are still suffering hugely from Irene. Del Co and particularly its eastern-most towns with tourism heavy economies are among the poorest in the state, annually ranking just below the Bronx (we're either at no 2 or no 3 depending on which year...).

I also imagine that while the convo about ORDA started before Irene, that Irene sped this up a bit. Cuomo was here 4 times in the week of and after the hurricane and Belleayre served as a huge relief area. I imagine he saw that something had to be done. Though, that's just my guessing.

Oh and one more thing on the ORDA Belle deal, I imagine that this will smooth the way for the new resort that's planned for Belleayre a bit like (and you folks who are around Gore and Whiteface will know more about this) development worked around those resorts. I don't know if the development was a PPP or if it helped underwrite capital improvements at the ski areas, but....

Reported in Watershed Post, the coming year's NY State fiscal budget includes transferring management of Bellayre from DEC to ORDA.  

     http://www.watershedpost.com/2012/its-official-cuomo-wants-orda-run-belleayre-mountain-next-year

My family and I ski WF regularly and want to see as much capital as possible invested in the Olympic mountain. That being said, if NYS gives a ski organization, such as ORDA, a ski area with 1,400' of vertical, 2 & 1/2 hours from NYC and debt free, should it not make money?

ADKarver wrote

... if NYS gives a ski organization, such as ORDA, a ski area with 1,400' of vertical, 2 & 1/2 hours from NYC and debt free, should it not make money?

I think this raises an interesting point.

Ultimately, Belleayre's survival is going to come down to marketing. Can Belleayre be successfully marketed, primarily to the New York City metro area, as an alternative to Hunter and Windham.

For a number of years now, there seems to have been discussion each year about whether Belleayre will open or not. Perhaps, the decision to transfer operation of Belleayre to ORDA is based on the possibility that ORDA might be able to do a better job of marketing Belleayre than DEC has been able to do.

This may just be a "last gasp" effort to keep Belleayre alive ... give ORDA one shot and see what they can do. If they can turn things around, or at least improve the bottom line, Belleayre may be allowed to live. If not, perhaps this is a way of shutting it down, while at least having "tried everything" to make it work.

Just a passing thought.

its not really 1400 vert - its like 900 max with a bunch of flat green trails below the lodge.  No one would ski it in one run.  That is a big part of why it can't compete with Hunter and Windham.

has anyone seen the proposed Orda budget?  

If it stays the same but Bell is added that means much less of everything for the two mountains in the ADK's and the one hill in the Cats.  Less snow making, less grooming, less lift mait, less staff, fewer operation days, less marketing, fewer improvements so when less skiers show up at all three the next season it will mean less budget once again the year after, repeat 3 years and we will have no ski areas period because NYS will then say ski areas lose money so we won't fund them period.  

I certainly hope that the previous poster was right.  If Bell fails its a goner after one year so we can save WF and Gore from the same fate down the road.  its an imperative - make money or not be funded - you don't risk the crown jewels for a cubic zinconia.

From the ADE today:

Cuomo: ORDA to run Belleayre Mountain Ski Center
January 19, 2012

By CHRIS MORRIS

LAKE PLACID - If Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposed 2012-13 budget was approved today, the state Olympic Regional Development Authority would take on management of a ski center in the Catskills in addition to two it runs in the Adirondacks.

A spending plan the governor laid out Tuesday calls for major reform of state agencies, including further consolidations and cuts to overlapping programs. That process, Cuomo said, began in the 2011-12 budget and will continue this year, saving the state some $10 million annually.

Full Story:

http://www.adirondackdailyenterprise.com/page/content.detail/id/528840/Cuomo--ORDA-to-run-Belleayre-Mountain-Ski-Center.html

EDIT:

http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/19154/20120119/as-big-tupper-resort-decision-looms-environmentalists-face-setbacks-divisions

"State Sen. Betty Little said ORDA might be able to turn Belleayre into a profitable venture.

"It has had a drain on DEC and state coffers," she said. "My only concern will be to see that it doesn't become a drain on ORDA.""

Sounds like Betty and I share the same concern.

From the Woodstock Times:

http://www.woodstockx.com/2012/01/22/unkind-cuts-as-belleayre-suffers-so-does-shandaken-economy/

The article presents opinions that seem to blame DEC management for a downturn in business at Belleayre. Highlighted are budget reductions for snowmaking and reduced promotional tickets as a response to pressure from Windham and Hunter (no mention of Plattekill).  It also does mention the weather.

If you could get Belleayre visit numbers, it would be interesting to see if Bell is down more than other NY ski areas this year, after you account for the elimination of BOGO/free/promotional lift tickets.

it's a shame no one skied hunter yesterday. curious about conditions and crowds.
Bell was a ghost town and conditions were poor..

we all need to pitch in to prevnet a disaster in the making - if NYS passes a budget where the Orda budget does not go up but we are stuck with Bell there will be no snowmaking after MLK next season

call your NYS reps and senators in support of increasing Orda's budget

I thought it said that ORDA would receive more money, and the DEC budget would go down. Either way, from what I've heard the Belleayre profits were never reinvested in the mountain. The skier tallys are fine, yearly. It shouldn't lose money. I think the development sucks as I've seen it presented. I'm sure ORDA will go through with those plans (condos, casino, Highmount, etc) and Bell will be a success and cause more traffic on 28 and block people from going to plattekill which sucks.

If the state wanted to do what's fair they'd auction it off and level the playing field in the cats.

It's actually not a casino but a golf course. A good walk spoiled but no money squandered. Well, perhaps.

A golf course, now? Those things cost tons of money to run.

Maybe it would bring in business but I'm a big fan of incremental and slow development. I shouldn't be posting in this thread though, any news about Belleayre + NYS is just going to tick me off.

none of the golf courses in LP are orda owned so i doubt golf if going to be on the orda agenda or NYS tax payers dime.  If the private development goes forward with a golf course that would make sense to drive some summer business to the developer but don't expect orda to be involved with that.

I heard that Bell has some other summer activities like a beach that also don't fit into Orda's MO so expect them to get dumped as well.  If you lay off almost all the staff in the summer like WF and Gore do there is a lot of money to be saved

it's possible that the beach will be broken off and run by the DEC. I can't see it closing. There's also the summer concert series Bell runs, which I could see continuing. How do WF / Gore deal with summer?