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Making the Peaks Resort and Spa the flagship for Telluride – As it Was Destined to Be
The Telluride Ski Resort closed Thursday afternoon on a deal to purchase the Peaks Resort and Spa for an undisclosed sum, according to Telski President and General Manager Greg Pack.
“The Peaks is a key property for all of Telluride, and we are a very vested stakeholder in the success of the entire area,” Pack said. “We would love to put some horsepower behind the Peaks and bring it back to where it was operated in the past.”
The hotel was built in 1992 on land donated by Telski and has gone through several ownership changes in the ensuing years. The ski resort was in talks to purchase the hotel in 2009 before it was eventually sold to Peaks Capital Partners, a group of local investors who agreed to sell to the resort Thursday.
Though the sale closed Thursday, Telski’s human resources team was already beginning the onboarding process as early as last Saturday. A memo sent out the morning of July 18 to current Peaks staff from Telski Executive Director of Human Resources Heather Young and Peaks human resources staff was shared with the Daily Planet. That letter described how the hiring process would work.
Peaks staff are required to onboard, a process that took place beginning Tuesday and continued through Friday. Pack said all Peaks employees would be given the opportunity to work there again.
As for what changes Telski plans to make to the hotel, Pack said that was still up for discussion.
“Our philosophy is, we really want to understand something before we go in with assumed changes,” Pack said. “We’ve been working with the team there to look at areas where they want to spend funds or increase service.”
The deal had been in the works since May, according to Pack.
When asked if rooms at The Peaks could be used for workforce housing, Pack was quick to affirm the resort wanted to maintain the property as a high-end hotel.
Pack would not specify how much the deal was for, but the closing price will be made public as soon as the San Miguel County Recorder’s Office has processed the paperwork. The 2009 sale was for $17.3 million, according to property records. According to Daily Planet reports from the time, the purchase price was less than half the price of bids for the hotel in 2007 and about $80 million less than the cost to build the hotel in the early ‘90s.
Ted and Todd Herrick, Mike Thiele and Bruce MacIntire made up part of Peaks Capital Partners. At the time of the 2009 purchase, their optimism for the property echoed the hopes Telski seems to have now.
“As locals we have watched the Peaks through all of its permutations, we are fully aware that this has been a difficult property to own, but we are confident that our group finally brings the right mix of local oversight with the proven and highly experienced management team of Grand Heritage Hotels & Resorts,” Todd Herrick said in a press release at the time. “In my opinion our investment group is the equivalent of a stable of champions and we are committed to making the Peaks the flagship for Telluride it was originally destined to be.”
Posted: Friday, July 24, 2015 8:06 am
