Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Tag: snowboarding

  • Western resort real estate is in very high demand

    People like ski and snowboard towns. Here’s an excerpt from a recent WSJ article talking about Park City:

    Prices continued to rise in most luxury ski towns this past year, but none grew as much as Park City, a former silver mining town 32 miles east of Salt Lake City. The average home sale price there grew 35% in 2023 from 2022, compared with a 9.4% increase at Vail and Beaver Creek and 3.2% at Aspen, according to the resort report by Summit Sotheby’s International Realty. 

    The main point of the article is this: Park City has gotten really expensive, and so people are now looking and buying homes further out in places like Heber City, Midway, and Kamas. Here’s how expensive expensive is:

    Over the last four years, Covid has stoked demand for western resort real estate. In Park City, single-family homes have sold for a median price of $4 million year-to-date, up from $1.996 million in 2019, according to Redfin, which averaged the monthly median sales prices weighted for the number of homes sold. One home was listed in September for $65 million, which could set a record for the state. It’s now under contract, according to listing agent Paul Benson of Engel & Völkers, who declined to disclose the sale price.

    This, of course, isn’t a novel phenomenon. It’s the whole “drive until you qualify” thing. But what’s interesting about this particular mountain example is that it’s not centered around access to a CBD or downtown; it’s centered around “how fast can I get to a ski and snowboard resort?”

    For example, Deer Valley has a new East Village that is expected to open up in 2025. This brings the cities mentioned above closer in. And buyers seem to be doing that math: “It’s a 25-minute drive today, but next year I’ll be able to get on a lift in 15 minutes. Score.”

    Given that Deer Valley also doesn’t allow snowboarders, it’s interesting to think about how these trends could be bifurcating the region between skiers and snowboarders. I don’t have any data on this, but I bet if you mapped it out, there would be some sort of clustering happen.

    The article also goes on to talk about transportation. Because you can’t talk about new development and real estate without talking about traffic. But I think Bill Ciraco (Park City Council) gets it exactly right in the article: This is a car problem, and less of a people problem.

    In my mind, the Wasatch Range is destined for something like this ONE Wasatch concept, which is/was a proposal to link seven resorts through a handful of new skiable connections. This is similar to what you’ll find in Europe, and it means less driving and more time on the mountain.

    That’s what everyone wants to be doing anyway.

    Photo by Lauren Pandolfi on Unsplash

  • Healing penny water

    We spent the last few days in Scuol, Switzerland. Scuol is a small mountain town with under 5,000 people (2018 figure) near the eastern border of the country. The town first achieved notoriety in the 1860s because of the various naturally-occurring mineral waters that can be found in the area. They were / are thought to have healing properties, and so a spa tourism destination was created. Skiing and snowboarding were later added to the town’s repertoire.

    We tried the water from this fountain — the Lischana source:

    The best way I can describe the taste is to say, imagine water that has had pennies soaking in it for the last 100 years. That’s what it tastes like, which is not good. But it is rich in magnesium and other things, which is why people (especially athletes) seek it out. It comes out clear from the source but if you let it sit in a bottle it will naturally become carbonated and turn brown. That’s why the embankment above has the color that it does.

    I had a handful of respectable sips. Hopefully that’s enough to make me strong. A big thank you to Klaus, Peter, and Jaimie for the invite to Scuol!

  • The French Alps and Utah are getting the Winter Games

    In my humble and partially biased opinion, two of the greatest places on earth to snowboard are the French Alps and Utah. I say the French Alps because, after 13 years of annual trips, I have yet to find better food and better après parties. And I say Utah because it’s, like, pretty hard to beat the greatest snow on earth.

    Well today, both of these places were announced as future hosts of the Winter Olympics. France will host the games in 2030 (once it has successfully met certain conditions) and Utah will host the games in 2034. This is exciting.

    But it was also entirely expected.

    France was the preferred choice since June. And Utah was the only choice for 2034. To host the Winter Games, you generally need to have at least two things: money and snow. And right now, fewer places want to spend the former on something that may or may not generate an ROI, and fewer places are getting the latter.

    Remember this post looking at the impact of climate change on the Winter Olympics?

    Because of these challenges, there is talk of the IOC adopting a permanent rotation of Winter Olympic cities. And Utah has been eagerly positioning itself to be one of the places. Biases aside, this feels like an obvious choice. Salt Lake City has some of the best and most accessible snowboarding in the world (SLC is a great airport) and — most importantly — it still snows there.

    Photo by Alex Moliski on Unsplash

  • How the ski industry price discriminates

    Snowboarding in Europe, of course, sounds really fancy. And don’t get me wrong, it can be fancy if you want it to be. But the reality is that it’s also a cheaper option. And that’s because the price of a single day lift ticket at most resorts in America is now many multiples of what it costs in Europe. Think $250 vs. €50.

    North America has become the expensive destination.

    According to a recent Economist article titled “the economics of skiing in America,” resorts in Europe are often owned by local or national governments. This is not the case in America, and it’s why the lift tickets in Europe seem, by comparison, cheap. But this price differential is also the result of an evolving business model.

    Historically, owning a ski resort has never been a stable business in the US. And this makes sense. Most resorts make their money on lift ticket sales. However, sales are dependent on snowfall. If you get a lot of snow, then you make a lot of money. If the planet starts warming up and you don’t get a lot of snow, then you don’t make a lot of money. Vail has since changed this.

    What they have done is made it so punitive to buy a single day lift ticket in North America, that even if you’re an occasional skier, the only sensible thing to do is buy a subscription-like pass in the spring — well before the next season starts.

    This is what I have started doing and it gives you unlimited skiing for less than the price of a few days. It also gives Vail a source of revenue that isn’t so dependent snowfall. Season passes now make up about 61% of their lift-ticket revenue, according to The Economist. At the same time, it is a model that relies on being able to price discriminate against single-day, non-pass users:

    In basic economic theory, excessive market power reduces the efficiency of an industry. Firms reduce output so as to be able to charge more. There is, however, an exception: if a monopolistic firm can charge different prices to different customers, it need not reduce output to increase its profit. The skiing industry shows the truth of this. As the industry has consolidated, daily prices have soared, extracting more cash from price-insensitive skiers.

    But this isn’t the only way to do it. There’s also the whole real estate thing. Last year, Reed Hastings, cofounder of Netflix, became the majority owner of Powder Mountain. And here, they’re trying out a different business model:

    This December, Powder Mountain in Utah announced that it would be moving to a model where only local property-owners are allowed to ski certain chairlifts. The idea is to profit from real-estate sales, by offering private skiing without the crowds. “To stay independent and uncrowded, we needed to change,” says Reed Hastings, the firm’s boss.

    Even still, neither of these approaches is making snowboarding and skiing more accessible. Which is why it’s not uncommon to come across stickers and t-shirts at local ski shops that say, “Vail — ruining ski towns since 1966.” People are missing the old days when lift tickets were cheap and the lines on powder days weren’t so long.

    What skiing needs is in fact much of what the economy more generally needs: supply-side reform, and especially the construction of new housing and transport in the most popular spots. Though there are more skiers than ever, there are in fact fewer resorts than there were a few decades ago.

    This sounds familiar.

    All quotes are from The Economist.

  • Psycho pillow run

    I have been told by some of you that when I write about snowboarding, you tune out on those days. If you are one of these people, then today is a good day to skip over on the blog. See you tomorrow.

    However, if you’re not one of these people, and you enjoy exceedingly cool things, then you’re going to want to take 6 minutes and — at the very least — watch Part III of the above video. Travis Rice is one of the best. And in this Red Bull video he goes from BC to Wyoming. (If for whatever reason it doesn’t start in the right place, click here and fast forward to 7:22 for Part III.)

    I once heard Quentin Tarantino say that if you choose the right song for the right scene in a movie, you’ll never be able to listen to that song ever again without thinking of the movie. (Think Pulp Fiction.) Now, this isn’t a movie per se, but it definitely feels like one of those cases. This techno song will forever remind me of this psycho “pillow” run.

  • Cheese, bacon, and starch

    I kept spotting this backpack in Les 3 Vallées and I thought it was awesome because, well, in the words of the late Anthony Bourdain, “you can never have too much cheese, bacon, or starch.” Tartiflette is a casserole dish that is local to the Haute-Savoie region in the French Alps. Its main ingredients are potatoes, bacon, and cheese (reblochon to be exact). And yes, it is as delicious and filling as it sounds.

    I also liked that the slogan was specific to the region we were in, and so I went on a hunt to find this mysterious backpack. I must have gone into at least 8-10 stores looking for it. None of them had it. But eventually I learned that it was an online thing. It was for the “I like to ski and hang out in chat rooms” crowd, or at least that’s how one guy explained it to me. So I went online and ordered it back to Toronto.

    It finally arrived today, and I’m looking forward to using it when I snowboard, cycle, and attempt to make tartiflette for the first time. Now I just need to locate some reblochon. (Note to US readers: My understanding is that this cheese is considered contraband in your country because it is unpasteurized and does not meet US import laws. So you may need to find some sort of clandestine cheese market if you want to make it.)

    For those of you who also like to ski and hang out in chat rooms, you can find the bag and other merch, here. It’s all an extension of the Grenoble-based online magazine, skipass.com.

  • The Enchanting Village

    The story of Avoriaz 1800 starts in the 1960s.

    Downhill skier Jean Vuarnet, whose name is today found on cool sunglasses, had just become an Olympic Champion at Squaw Valley in California. He returned to his home in Morzine, France (located in Haute-Savoie) and was asked to help build a new resort on the empty plateau above the town.

    So he, and whoever else, raised some money, got the necessary approvals, and managed to successfully get the first lifts operational. But the resort quickly ran into financial difficulties and, apparently, bankruptcy became a possibility.

    The turning point came when he met Paris-based developer Robert Brémond. He had the capital and the experience, and so Vuarnet eventually ceded the project to him in 1962. In 1964, Robert then asked his son, Gérard, who was only 27 at the time, to lead the project. Supposedly he said to him, “the mountains are for the younger generation.”

    Gérard then went out and hired a young architect named Jacques Labro. He was also in his 20s at the time; 26 to be exact. The mandate he gave Labro was clear: design the ideal recreational resort. At the same time, he was asked to build upon Vuarnet’s original vision for Avoriaz. The result was an audacious masterplan designed around three guiding principles.

    First, it was to be a completely car-free resort, which was/is a big deal and an accomplishment that remains true today. To access Avoriaz by car you either need to park below in Morzine and take a gondola up, or park at the entrance to the resort.

    Two, it was to be an ideal place for skiing (snowboarding didn’t exist just yet). This meant that the entire resort had to be sloped correctly so that everything would be ski in and ski out.

    Finally, it was to have decidedly modern architecture that fit sensitively within the landscape. They didn’t want it to look like some ideal Swiss mountain village. What they wanted was bold, different, and highly sustainable. The result is some of the most unique mountain architecture to be found anywhere.

    For a preview of the village’s architecture, check out these photos by Alastair Philip Wiper. They were part of an exhibition called “Avoriaz: The Enchanting Village.” Along with this story, they will probably make you want to visit the place. That’s certainly the case for me.

    Photo by Rémi Bertogliati on Unsplash

  • Bar d’altitude

  • 3 degrees

    Yesterday, my knee started acting up again on the mountain. It (sometimes they) has a tendency of doing that. Supposedly it’s my IT (iliotibial) band. But I’m not exactly sure. So I had a low-impact snowboarding day and a high-impact aprés ski day, instead. However, when I was training with Noah Mandel last winter, one of the things that he suggested was rotating my snowboard binding to take some of the pressure off of the side of my knee and move it toward the front. So I did that. I rotated it exactly 3 degrees. And then today, I had one of my best days on the mountain. Sometimes all it takes in life is 3 degrees.

  • The après table test

    There are a number of ways to evaluate a good après ski spot. There’s the food. The drinks. The views/sun exposure. The overall atmosphere. And the simple test of: Am I having fun here? But another important telltale sign is the tables. Yes, the tables. What you want to do is inspect their structural integrity. If they were carefully engineered for dancing upon, then bingo — you’re more than likely at a good après ski spot. And it probably means that at some point in the afternoon or evening, you are going to end up on top of one of them. See above video. If you happen find yourself in this fortunate situation, then there’s no better place than one of the locations of La Folie Douce. I have been to a number of mountains, and I can confidently say that, so far, nothing comes even remotely close. Their tables are robustly engineered.