Vail bought the ski area= CB will suck like Vail in a hot minute
Vail bought the ski area= CB will suck like Vail in a hot minute
https://coloradosun.com/2019/02/18/crested-butte-investment-vail-resorts-ski-lift/purity wrote:
Vail bought the ski area= CB will suck like Vail in a hot minute
Doper Queen wrote:
rob riggles nanna wrote:
“Steal labor”…..uh, wut?
Apparently some dude clueless that real people want good jobs and benefits which corporations actually can offer.
He means you don't ever get the full value of your labor paid to you.
That's like rule 1 of business - pay the employees less than the value of the items they are producing so you can make a profit.
Former ski bum wrote:
https://coloradosun.com/2019/02/18/crested-butte-investment-vail-resorts-ski-lift/purity wrote:
Vail bought the ski area= CB will suck like Vail in a hot minute
CB was over like 20 years ago. The Vail Resorts investments just ramped it up among the jet set and pushed it further out of reach. You had to have a large (million$) nest egg to go in there as far back as 2000 and remain long term. It's just that now the off-season rates for Mt. CB condos are out of reach for the dirtbags at 2-3 people per bedroom. Since service workers can't afford to live within 10 miles of town, they'll either bus in from Gunny or it'll become BYO servant(s) for the wealthy. Same thing happened in Aspen, Telluride, Steamboat, and Jackson. City of Aspen had to buy a trailer park down valley to put in subsidized tiny homes for seasonal workers.
Where the original starting post for this thread? I get bringing back a thread, but what good is it without the original post?
Questioner Of Things wrote:
Where the original starting post for this thread? I get bringing back a thread, but what good is it without the original post?
It's embedded in one of the first several replies, where you can also see the sexist term that got it nuked. It's not a great OP by any means, the responses it generated are the only value here.
The sad thing is that CB is still comparatively cheap. Average home prices in the Aspen area are over $10 mil. Vail/Beavercreek and Telluride average over $1.5 mil, but in the current market, most everything is $5 mil+. Steamboat is relatively cheap just because there is a lot more room to build. But practically speaking, you still need $1 mil+ to buy in Steamboat. You can actually get a lot in CB for a decent price and build your own home and get out for under $1 mil. CB does have some room to grow. But unless you have cash to spend, the builders will beat you out and everything they build will be luxe.
Ski areas have been trying hard to staff up with retired locals because seasonal staff can't find housing. But you can't have old folks doing ski patrol or working as lift rats.
Labor shortages are a good thing for workers. If the resorts cant hire someone then that means the market is working. So the only two solutions are to 1) up your pay and benefits enough to attract workers. 2) Hire undocumented workers aka illegal immigrants. This is a cheat because it really undercuts the real labor market.
In the 1950s Detroit MI was seen as the American dream. Now look at it, it's a punchline of a city, point being.. things change. Cities come and go and have up and down periods, so too will Colorado.
This situation in CB seems like a fairly straightforward thing because it's geographically isolated and tourism is the main economic driving force. That is nobody is moving there specifically for a great job.
It's an attractive place to live because of the scenery, weather, etc., but also because it has the amenities that make it a nice place to live, like restaurants, shops, stores that sell ski gear or mountain bikes. So it makes sense that people are going to want to move there.
But at the same time, if you can't get anybody to work in the retail or support the recreational facilities (i.e. min wage or near min wage workers), then the desirability to live there goes way down. If the restaurants and ski lifts are closed due to lack of workers, you might as well build your million-dollar house in the middle of nowhere - where land is cheaper.
The obvious solution is to increase property tax, especially on absentee owners and/or properties that are 2nd/3rd homes or primarily rental properties. Use the property tax income to build affordable housing for retail and recreation workers. Break out of the mindset that property tax has to be the same for everyone. Make it tiered or progressive taxes for non-locals or whatever. You can even make a special category for someone that lives there year round but also has rentals via Air B&B or whatever.
Bullet the Blue Sky wrote:
This situation in CB seems like a fairly straightforward thing because it's geographically isolated and tourism is the main economic driving force. That is nobody is moving there specifically for a great job.
It's an attractive place to live because of the scenery, weather, etc., but also because it has the amenities that make it a nice place to live, like restaurants, shops, stores that sell ski gear or mountain bikes. So it makes sense that people are going to want to move there.
But at the same time, if you can't get anybody to work in the retail or support the recreational facilities (i.e. min wage or near min wage workers), then the desirability to live there goes way down. If the restaurants and ski lifts are closed due to lack of workers, you might as well build your million-dollar house in the middle of nowhere - where land is cheaper.
The obvious solution is to increase property tax, especially on absentee owners and/or properties that are 2nd/3rd homes or primarily rental properties. Use the property tax income to build affordable housing for retail and recreation workers. Break out of the mindset that property tax has to be the same for everyone. Make it tiered or progressive taxes for non-locals or whatever. You can even make a special category for someone that lives there year round but also has rentals via Air B&B or whatever.
Easier said than done.
The main problem is that all these town councils are filled with developers and architects. They just look for the next big thing. The housing problem is kicked down the road for decades. So far they all got away with it. But they might run out of workers pretty soon.
In the bigger picture skiing is on the way out. It was a boomer sport and not many younger people followed. Combined with Climate Change the days of skiing can be counted.