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Vail Purchases Park City Mountain Resort for $182.5 Million

Park City Mountain Resort
Park City Mountain Resort

Vail Resorts has purchased Park City Mountain Resort for $182.5 million dollars.

The purchase will end all litigation between Park City Mountain Resort and Talisker Land Holdings. The fight between the two began almost three years ago when PCMRfailed to renew their lease of the Talisker owned ski terrain. Vail got involved in the litigation in 2013 when they began leasing the Canyons Resort from Talisker for $25 million a year. That agreement also included the rights to lease the disputed PCMR land after all litigation was resolved.

Until Thursday’s announcement, Attorneys for PCMR had indicated that they would continue to fight to maintain their lease, including paying a $17.5 million bond ordered by the court to be able to operate the resort this year. With the purchase, the bond no longer matters and Vail now owns all PCMR’s assets and base parking.

Blaise Carrig is the president of the mountain division for Vail Resorts and will be the interim chief operating officer of PCMR. He says the nearby Canyons Resort will operate separately from Park City Mountain Resort this season, but they hope to connect the two with a lift as soon as possible.

“The opportunity to link them together and create this one large resort is going to be very compelling to the destination market, and I think it’s going to mean great things for drawing people to Utah in general, as well as into Park City and our resort,” he says.

Carrig says while Vail will look for ways to market the two resorts as one experience, they understand the special nature of each resort and its community.

“You know, we don’t have a cookie cutter type of approach," he says. "We really understand, and probably respect, the uniqueness of each resort above everything else, because we know that’s why people choose to go to Vail versus Breckenridge or Park City versus Deer Valley or Canyons and vice-versa.”

Starting immediately Vail’s Epic Pass and Epic Local pass will be valid at both resorts. The combined resort will be the largest ski resort in the United States and offer more than seven thousand acres of ski terrain. Previous owners of PCMR did not respond to requests for comment. 

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