For $7 million, you can buy 373 acres, including a former ski area in Clear Creek County, about 45 miles from Denver off Fall River Road near Idaho Springs.
The Slopes at St. Mary’s Glacier sits 10,000 feet above sea level south of St. Mary’s Glacier and southwest of St. Mary’s Lake in the Silver Creek valley.
Listed for sale by Kristin Michas, Josh Jackson and Les Pfenning with LIV Sotheby’s International Realty, the property abuts the federally owned and protected Arapaho National Forest and James Peak Wilderness. The realtors declined to name the LLC that owns the property.
Potential land uses could include a terrain and training park for athletes or an all-season adventure park offering indoor and outdoor facilities for snowboarders, skiers, skateboarders and mountain bikers. It also could become a more conventional ski and snowboard resort.
“This area is ripe for the picking for a bold developer,” Jackson said. “It’s a chance to create an outdoor playground with unencumbered access to the Continental Divide.”
A potential ski resort could join Echo Mountain, which sold in September for more than $7 million, and Loveland in offering ski and snowboarders easily accessible recreation off I-70.
Or, a buyer could develop the land into a resort with lodging, dining and rental shops that hosts events from weddings to corporate retreats.
The property is the former home of St. Mary’s Glacier Resort, a family-owned ski and snow resort that operated from the 1930s to the mid-1980s. It included a small chalet and T-bar lift. Iran Emeson and his wife ran the ski area for several years, trying to keep lift prices below $8, but they struggled. “I was trying to have very inexpensive lift tickets because I was of the opinion that other than rich people could ski,” Emeson said in a 2005 Denver Post interview.
Michael Coors, a member of the Coors Brewing family, led an investment group that bought the dormant ski area in 2005 for $1.65 million. The group initially planned to develop the site into Eclipse Snow Park, a 270-acre terrain ski area with halfpipes, rails and jumps.
Over the next five years, the plan evolved, but in 2010, Clear Creek County commissioners ultimately rejected the proposal to develop a 12-acre learn-to-ski area, citing traffic safety concerns.
Michas referenced the recent Echo Mountain sale and said she’s confident Colorado’s growth and the need for revenue in Clear Creek County makes the climate more conducive to the potential development of a ski area. “With the demand in the market, there’s a strong desire for more outdoor adventure and development,” she said.
This story was reported by our partner BusinessDen.
