New owners of ski resort want to
work with Red Lodge
By Alastair Baker
News Editor
It appears to be a match made in heaven, with both JMA Ventures, the San Francisco company which purchased Red Lodge Ski Resort last week, and the town of Red Lodge working in tandem for the betterment of each other.
This is the message Arthur Chapman, president of JMA Ventures, wanted to convey to the town's people
when he gave an exclusive interview with the News, Oct. 25. With him were David Tirman, executive vice president of JMA Ventures, Kent Hoopingarner, general manager of Homewood Mountain Resorts, and Rob Ringer, Red Lodge Mountain Ski Resort manager.
Chapman, who started the real estate investment firm 25 years ago which now owns assets of $800 million, is committed to this latest venture.
"The mountain doesn't work unless it is part of Red Lodge, part of this community," Chapman said. "To us we wouldn't have acquired that mountain and the ski operation if Red Lodge wasn't here."
The company's interest in hospitality resorts, historic properties, and rehabilitating them is a further reason behind the purchase.
"The (ski resort) people here have done a wonderful job of hanging on during a time period when maybe the resources weren't there to keep it up," said Chapman. "One thing we can provide is the capital to do that initially and the rest will evolve on the basis of what the employees and the community want us to do."
Red Lodge "frankly" fit right into their blue print.
"Red Lodge is very similar to Truckee, (a small California town in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, where Chapman, Tirman and Hoopingarner live) "and is over 100 years old and rich in history," said Chapman.
"The way we like to do things is to come in, and understand the community, become part of the community and listen, and not to come in here and say 'this is what we want to do' but to listen to people who know a lot more about it than us," said Chapman. "Ultimately, if what we'd like to see happen here is going to work, it's going to work because of the local community, it resonates with them. They embrace it, become part of it, otherwise it doesn't work. That's how we approach what we do, and that's what we intend to do here."
Chapman placated "legitimate concerns" about Red Lodge becoming a destination resort similar to Homewood Mountain Resort (another JMA Venture property) near Lake Tahoe, Calif. The resort became "very, very congested" in an "environmentally sensitive area" with few of the surrounding towns benefiting from the tourist trade.
"Where we have made a mistake in the past is not taking the time to appreciate how important things are to the local community who, generationingly, growing up, this has been part of their lives," he said. "We're not going to make that mistake."
For Red Lodge, Chapman sees a "bed base" as an "ideal" way to capture the target audience and share the wealth.
"The ideal thing would be to see a bed base developed here so people could come in, stay for three to four days to shop, dine, enjoy the community and then for us to have to ability to take them up to the mountain and bring them back," said Chapman. "To us we have to become part of the town and the town has to be supportive. People just don't want to ski and go home, they want to enjoy a stroll down main street, and visit the beautiful shops, the great restaurants, have the entire experience. The town is a big part of it."
Immediate plans for the ski resort are to install state-of-the-art snow making machines.
"What's lacking in Red Lodge is snow. There will be extensive snow making in the lower areas, near the buildings to encourage families," said Chapman.
"You have got to have snow making," said Hoopingarner. "The amount of investment anymore in the ski business, even a new chair lift, you've got to be able to use it. I told Art (Chapman) when I first met him, 'what would you rather have? New lifts and no snow, or no lifts and all snow.'"
Hoopingarner can't talk yet about developing new runs until he looks more closely at the resort.
The notion of families is strong with the group and essential.
"One of things we believe in is that ski areas work if families embrace them," interjected Chapman. "Families start as beginners, then intermediates, then the husbands and guys come along."
Also in line for improvement are the buildings, trail systems, chair lifts, the mid-mountain chalet, and food and beverage. Even the much maligned road leading up to the mountain is being studied.
"People will see a change in the first year. It will be in the common areas, in the restaurant, food and beverage, in the equipment. We will do that immediately," said Chapman. "This is going to take a number of years to do properly and we will talk to the community to get some feed back."
There are also plans to utilize the resort more in the summer.
"My guess is more people come here in the summer than the winter, what a lost opportunity," said Chapman. "Whether it's for music, drama, Shakespeare Festivals, that is something we will be looking at to use that beautiful asset in the summer time and people will come up here and enjoy it."
The Red Lodge Golf Course was also part of the purchase agreement and JMA Venutre are looking immediately at bringing in designers, and adding some more characters like water features and trees to make it a better golfing experience.
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