Belleayre Resort news

the never crowded commet seems to contradict the what i thought were really high skier day counts talked about earlier in this thread - how many skier days Bell does seems as questionable as its accounting books

Jamesdeluxe wrote

A great description of Belleayre for the angry ADKers who claim that it's worthless: no crowds on the trails.

its nice to ski at a area that has few other skiers but that becomes the other side of the coin when we start talking about Bell sucking up Orda resources and its questionable at best profitability prospects

From all the fuss made over this place I get that for that part of the state it is a nice place to ski.  The no Huntah douchebag clientel part alone would be a selling point to me if i lived down there.

Yet I still strongly feel that a ski area that far from the mother ship and the constitutional mandate of Orda would be a big mistake.  If i was a patron of Bell I'd be pushing for a local entity to take it over.  I don't see any reason that its own economic development agency could not be created to develop and run it.  Of course just like Orda the local govt's town and county wil need to step up and help fund it.  There is no free ride which is what it seemsed Catskill folks were looking for from Orda.

One thing that I liked is the non commercial feel of Belleayre. Living in the city most of the time, you get tired of dishing out dollars for every little thing, and you can approach a point where it feels like a sickening money sucking machine when you get to the high  end / luxury type commercial resorts. I ride hard at Belleayre, arrive at opening, stop for under an hour to eat and digest, then ride until last chair. I don't booze it up in the afternoons, and once I'm warmed up by the fire, I'm out on the lift again.

Of course operating a ski area costs millions of dollars, and you can't cut corners where safety is concerned, especially in a state with so many lawyers :) . I think when this transitionary period passes management can buckle down and get back
to the business of operating a great ski area and community hub. Politics are ugly, and I'm not really educated in all of the facets of this issue, but I hope Belleayre comes out on top, it really is a great ski area with a great history, I fell in love with it my first day.

I guess Brighton isn't a mountain either....

HIGHMOUNT >> The Belleayre Resort at Catskill Park can be built.

That was word late Friday afternoon from state Environmental Commissioner Joseph Martens, who said he has ordered the necessary permits for the project be issued.

The resort, first proposed in 2000, has been the subject of years of debate and numerous modifications. The final agreed-upon plan calls for two hotels and one golf course on land adjacent to the Belleayre Mountain Ski Center in the Highmount section of Shandaken.

Part of the resort will be over the Delaware County line, in the town of Middletown.

http://www.dailyfreeman.com/general-news/20150710/belleayre-resort-wins-final-ok-from-ny-state

I hope they pull that off - it's a much better plan than ACR.
Bell needs just about every lift replaced and a lot of terrain work but that will come with time.

Wow, I'd pretty much forgotten about this project. The "Future Site of Belleayre Resort" sign on the access road, at the fork to Highmount, has been sitting there for so long, I figured that it was simply going to rot and fall over before anything happened.

Harvey wrote

ausable skier wrote

if it doesn't have 2000 vert its not really a mountain - its just a hill.

I guess Mad River and Jay Peak don't classify as real mountains.

I'm just gonna sit back and watch the fireworks.

Peter Minde wrote

Harvey wrote

ausable skier wrote

if it doesn't have 2000 vert its not really a mountain - its just a hill.

I guess Mad River and Jay Peak don't classify as real mountains.

I'm just gonna sit back and watch the fireworks.

jay and mad both have 2k

I won't go as far to say you need 2k vert but Bellayre does ski more like a hill because of the lay out.  You only ski maybe 600-800 vert a run and it's has all these cross trails.  

Not sure what I was thinking.

Ausable, here is a review from a couple of years ago.  We have moved on to Gore but for downstate families, Belleayre has a lot going for it.

http://forum.nyskiblog.com/Belleayre-Mountain-Ski-Center-NY-2-23-14-tp4037268.html

Petronio

To the Supporters of the Belleayre Resort at Catskill Park;
 
Last Friday we received some very good news and would like to share it with all our friends and supporters.  Below is the Press Release we issued that explains it all. THANK YOU all again for all you’ve done to help us reach this milestone.
 
PRESS RELEASE ISSUED JULY 10TH:

The future of the Belleayre Resort at Catskill Park received a huge boost on Friday July 10th when NYS DEC Commissioner Joseph Martens issued a decision officially ending the adjudicatory process holding up the release of a Final Environmental Impact Statement of the Resort project.  The Commissioner’s action confirms that all potential adverse effects associated with Crossroads’ plans have been addressed and mitigated, thus clearing the way for final staff action and the issuance of the necessary DEC permits for resort construction.
 
The project’s managing partner, Dean Gitter, was elated with the news out of Albany and offered the hope that, with completion of construction plans and project financing by spring of 2016, ground breaking could commence by the middle of next year.  “This project,” said Gitter,  “will provide an enormous and almost immediate boost to the economy of the region.  With a groundbreaking, construction workers – both local and coming from the greater Hudson Valley region – will begin earning and spending money here.  With completion, hundreds of resort related jobs, with salaries ranging from $25,000 to $150,000 will become available”.
 
Gitter added that “it’s taken what seems like a lifetime to get this far with the project, and I can only thank my partners, Emily Fisher and Ken Pasternak, from the bottom of my heart, for their determination and patience to stick this effort out and do something really meaningful for the revitalization of the Central Catskills”.  He indicated that Martens’ signature recognizes that every imaginable environmental concern about the project, has been considered and addressed in a meaningful way.  Gitter also said that the DEC Belleayre Ski Center Unit Management Plan, which was analyzed in tandem with its own Environmental Impact Statement, allowed officials to look at the cumulative impact of both projects on the environment.  Improvements to the Belleayre Ski Center simultaneously with the construction of the Belleayre Resort could expand the Ski Center’s capacity to 325,000 skier visits a year – more than a two-fold increase over the present usage.
 
Gitter also lauded the hundreds of businesses and individuals in the region who supported his efforts on the project.  “These people have waited a long, long time to see their communities revitalized, and DEC’s decision would not have happened without their support,” said Gitter.  “After 15 years of study, the generation of thousands of pages of expert testimony, exhaustive public hearings, input from hundreds of respondents, detailed analysis by several layers of DEC staff, and finally a review by the Commissioner himself,” continued Gitter, “the longest and most detailed examination of any proposed development in the history of New York State, is finally nearing a conclusion”.
 
Now that Commissioner Martens has concluded his review of the project, the DEC’s Region 3 Permit Bureau can finalize and issue a Final Environmental Impact Statement together with a Findings Statement and permits for the project.   Gitter said permits could be issued in as little as a few weeks.  Thereafter the planning boards of Shandaken and Middletown can conclude their review of the project and issue building and special use permits allowing the project to break ground.
 
Overall the project is expected to cost over $360 million to construct and will employ, after full buildout, some 750 workers.  Gitter concluded:  “As we said from the very beginning, over 15 years ago, the Belleayre Resort project will be a model of environmental responsibility, serving as a catalyst, the motor that drives the revitalization of year round tourism and the quality of life for those who live in and visit our Catskill mountains and forest preserve.  I’m happy to say that we are much closer to realizing that vision”.

750 jobs added seems way too optimistic.  

It is good to see this approved.  That part of the Catskills is sorely lacking for decent lodging.  Can they compete for some of the Govs investment giveaway?

too many rules were bent to make this happen. job numbers are pie in the sky. don't trust dean.

/rant

ml242 wrote

too many rules were bent to make this happen. job numbers are pie in the sky. don't trust dean.
/rant

I haven't dug into this project to the extent that I have with Big Tupper, but ML's skepticism is well warranted.

ML aren't you a big Belleyre supporter?  It's not my cup of tea but I see where it fits into the market for intermediate accessible day trip skiing.

Why exactly are you against this?

I've only been there once for a race but it seems to me that that General area really needs decent lodging and economic development.  

The knock against Tupper is that it is in the middle of nowhere and the plus always brought up for Bellerye is how close it is to NYC.  To me it seems many of you guys are just anti development.

Coach Z wrote

ML aren't you a big Belleyre supporter?  It's not my cup of tea but I see where it fits into the market for intermediate accessible day trip skiing.

Why exactly are you against this?

I've only been there once for a race but it seems to me that that General area really needs decent lodging and economic development.  

The knock against Tupper is that it is in the middle of nowhere and the plus always brought up for Bellerye is how close it is to NYC.  To me it seems many of you guys are just anti development.

You cannot satisfy everybody.

In addition to being 130 miles from Times Square, it is a 4 hour trip from northern Philadelphia suburbs. That means most of NJ is within 4 hours or less, too. This will add another great option for slope side lodging in the Catskills. There will be a nice expansion of ski terrain and people will stay overnight. The overnight visits will help steady the support businesses and will help expand summer visits. Owners will use their units all year. Plattekill will also benefit from the increase in overnight visits.

This will be a great help to an area of the Catskills that needs economic help.

I am a skeptic of 'this', I don't like big resort projects. They keep the bodies on the hill and don't seem to spread the wealth to me. The point of Belle was to have an affordable winter recreation opportunity for ny'ers. Does it need a golf course and convention center and all the other shit to meet that goal? Plus traffic on 28 is going to be even worse now. Well, I like zipping along on the way to Platty and getting stuck behind tons of Toyota Sierra's with summer tires sounds like a bad time.

Want to incorporate HM? go ahead. New snowmaking? sure, why not. Let someone else build some hotels/restaurants though. And there's already a golf course not far (and I'm also anti-Golf I suppose). As far as the lack of lodging goes, I am pretty sure there were more options than the few you saw and have checked out. Might not be all slopeside, but there are options.

As for the rest, if there are rules to prevent development over a certain elevation, stuff like that, why bend the rules? Who benefits? Even more than skiing I like cheap and clean drinking water, our greatest asset in this state. It sets a terrible precedent that the rich and powerful can do what they want, lie, push back the goalposts, and we just have to deal with it always. Fuck that.

also, if you want to expand the mission to providing training for Olympic sports or something like that, fine. But economic development seems to benefit a few in this instance more than the whole. Ski resorts just look like Stadium deals a bit to me, maybe the govt shouldn't be involved rather than digging in further?

ie. PRIVATIVE PROFITS, SOCIALIZE DEBTS

(not my debts, of course)

Kind of what I figured.  You like The ski area and the roads there less crowded.  I'll venture a guess that you side country ski on the old HM trails and this would impact your private playground.