A project I worked on (and skied in) with the Zero Gravity terrain park crew at Moonlight Basin. We set up at sundown to get a sunset shot, which turned out to be fantasy due to overcast. Nonetheless, the light went, and the cats and floodlights came, and we had ourselves a good old fashioned nightrider.
By Taylor Anderson, Big Sky Weekly Assistant Editor
A group of Montana residents and business owners has gathered for the past few months to essentially define the borders of Big Sky, Montana. Well, define it for first-time visitors, at least.
A wayfinding, signage and entryway monument group discussed how and what aspects of the town it would mark at a Thursday, Jan. 19 meeting in the Big Sky Chapel.
The group, accompanied Thursday by Montana Department of Transportation representative Lee Alt, decided to roughly follow resort tax and zoning district boundaries to begin marking the town.
The discussion revolved around establishing signage that would help new visitors understand the sometimes-complex setup of Big Sky.
“It’s the perception of the community from a visitor,” committee organizer Ryan Hamilton said. “They don’t care if something’s called Meadow Village Center, Town Center, Mountain Village. They just want to know how to get around.”
Big Sky services would be marked on signs starting at the Jack Smith Bridge to the north in the Gallatin Canyon and the Corral and Rainbow Ranch in the canyon to the south.
In the south, where drivers are exposed to more development indicating a town before approaching Route 64, signs will tell drivers they’ve entered the town. North boundary signs will follow the current, DOT-sponsored sign that indicates there are six miles before the town begins.
The group decided it would follow a broad and refined model for signs depending on where they are in town.
It is also considering a design model similar to a ski hill: green signs would be broad signs directing visitors to town; blue signs would start indicating that all services were available in the canyon or up Route 64; and black signs would refine where businesses are.
Perimeter markers, the group said, should be generic and easy for drivers to process while traveling the treacherous canyon road at 60-mph.
Rather than mark the road with a sign telling southbound travelers the town is to the west up Route 64, the group hopes to let drivers know they have already been in Big Sky for a few miles in the canyon. Plus, a member said, there are aspects of the town lying south of Spur Road.
Signs should read rather that visitors can find food, lodging, medical assistance and entertainment in the Meadow, Alt suggested.
The town must also follow rules set by the DOT that state advertisements cannot be marked on custom signs. Rather than advertising for the resorts at the mountain, for example, they would read “Ski.” Another member suggested the sign should just read “Fun.”
Hamilton, who said he’s been working on this project for more than a year, was happy to see the community rally behind the idea, and that it’s time the town gets organized with signs.
“We knew going into this thing that it’s not easy,” he said. “If it were easy, we’d have had this 25 years ago.”
taylor@theoutlawpartners.com
@taylorwanderson
Filed under Big Sky Economy, Financial Stories
Tagged as big sky, big sky country news, big sky montana, big sky news, taylor anderson writer
Considers changing 99-year-old district name from Ophir
By Taylor Anderson, Big Sky Weekly Assistant Editor
Jerry House is a systems guy.
The 41-year veteran of education is in the middle of his first year acting as Superintendent of Ophir School District in Big Sky. His history of teaching and supervising school districts in Washington and Whitefish gave him insight into larger districts, which has followed him to Big Sky.
After about six months in the position, House (and a three-person committee) has proposed changing the district name and redeveloping the high school curriculum.
“We don’t have a map right now, kids are signing up for classes at will,” House said. “We want the student to have so many skills when they walk out of here that they’re competent.”
House has worked on a three-person committee—alongside school board member Barbara Rowley and teacher and athletic director Tony Beardsley—considering increasing the curriculum. The change would move graduation requirements from the current 22-credit graduation requirement to a 27–32 credit requirement to obtain a diploma from Lone Peak High School.
Starting with freshman, those who earn 27-29 credits would qualify a student for a diploma and 30-32 for a diploma with honors.
The changes would increase the required math, science and social studies credits from three to four credits, a second year of foreign language, and a three-credit service project that students complete over their four years at school.
Part of the committee proposal includes a Capstone Project, a five-step program that begins by outlining the high school process to eighth grade students. The program aims to integrate students with the high school and the community.
The committee is also considering changing the 99-year-old Ophir School District to one they believe gives a better sense of place: Big Sky School District.
Eleven parents weighed in at a public forum in the Big Sky Chapel Jan. 23 during the committee’s proposal. It was the second of three consecutive weekly forums to discuss the proposal.
The consensus from the first two meetings, according to many at the meeting: We may need to first improve the quality of education rather than increase course load.
“I’ve seen so many hours of homework to the point of weekends don’t exist,” Erik Lovold said, to which other parents agreed.
House agreed as well, and said he would work with the faculty on finding a “uniformity and consistency” when it comes to teaching students, rather than increasing homework.
Diane Bartzick, a parent of a sophomore and an eighth grade student, said the proposal is a great start to improving the education of Lone Peak’s students, but that the school needs to make changes logically.
“Once they improve on what we have and make class offerings more available for kids that can’t get into existing courses… you can review increasing the core curriculum,” she said.
Bartzick said she’d rather increase in “baby steps,” and that an increase of three credits for incoming freshmen would be appropriate.
With the current block scheduling system in place, students can take eight credits each year, allowing those that take full course loads to graduate in 3 years.
Many expressed belief that students may not be ready to enter college without more time at high school. Another concern was the practicality of increasing the courses offered, with the current limited space and scheduling conflicts at the school.
But House and the committee said the only personnel needed for adding the credits would be moving the current math teacher from part time to full time, and hiring a part time faculty member to oversee internship and school-business partnerships.
However, at the end of the meeting, House announced that Beardsley’s is being shared with another teacher because of lack of office space.
There is one more community forum on Jan. 30 in the Lone Peak Cinema before the committee makes its board recommendation on Feb. 18 during a public meeting.
taylor@theoutlawpartners.com
Filed under Uncategorized
Tagged as barbara rowley, jerry house, lone peak high school, lphs, lphs big sky, ophir school, tony beardsley
Introduces stakeholders to new management group
By Taylor Anderson
Officials at Moonlight Basin Resort announced today that after months of wading through the much of a three-way Chapter 11 bankruptcy, a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers Holdings has obtained full ownership of the resort.
The news has been more than a year in the making, and marks the completion of an ownership battle that now officially transfers ownership from Moonlight Basin and former owner Lee Poole, to the Lehman Brothers affiliate.
Lehman Brothers has effectively owned the ski and golf resort since Oct. 26, when the resort announced it had reached a settement in court. There were more proceedings, however, and the groups needed settle with a list of hundreds of creditors.
All secured creditors and 90 percent unsecured, convenient (less than $10,000 owed) will receive payment in full from Lehman. The other 10 percent due more than $10,000 will receive a portion, according to chief operating officer Russ McElyea.
“That could be changed depending if others give claim,” McElyea said. “Right now under the plan they’re getting paid 68 percent of money owed.”
The announcement marks the official takeover from Lehman of all resort operations, and eliminates Poole from the process.
In a letter to stakeholders, McElyea announced the takeover of management by the Atira Group, a Colorado-based group specializing in ski and golf resort management.
Gerry Engle, founding principal of Atira, spoke on the phone from Atlanta about his company’s involvement with the takeover.
“The hardest thing in the world is we’re going through one of the toughest real estate time in recent memory,” Engle said.
He said that Moonlight’s lack of unfilled houses make it a great place to start managing.
“There’s a committed group of owners there. Now you’ve got a new ownership team with Atira and the team that’s already there,” he said.
McElyea and the Moonlight administrative employees will begin work Friday for the same company with a new name: Moonlight Basin Management, LLC.
But there is work yet to be completed in court both by Moonlight and Lehman, as both are still operating under Chapter 11.
Part of recent proceedings has been the legal transfer of assets from Moonlight to Lehman, McElyea said.
“Lehman pays Lee (Poole) a certain amount of money, then everyone releases” control of assets, McElyea said.
The groups, formed together under Moonlight Basin Management, will work together starting Jan. 23, on long term, strategic plans and budgets to get the company moving forward under new ownership.
“From here on out they go through winding up processes like we’re doing,” he said. “Getting people paid, assets transferred, administrative things. When that’s complete then you go to the court and say we did everything we needed to get done under the (bankruptcy) plan.”
Filed under Big Sky Economy, Financial Stories
After two years, new ownership rounds a corner
By Taylor Anderson, Big Sky Weekly Assistant Editor
Contractors at the club up the hill in Madison County were busy last year. Thirteen houses busy, according to Yellowstone Club vice president of sales Bill Collins.
“In the last six months, since May, 13 homes have been completed,” Collins said.
Another 27 homes will be reviewed for approval within the next six months, he said.
Money on housing projects like these creates a trickledown effect that starts with local designers and architects, moves to contractors and their employees, and then to lumberyards, raw material suppliers and local craftsmen. It’s a long chain of economic activity that makes its way around the region when new members join, buy and build.
And while houses have also been going up elsewhere around the region, the rate of development hasn’t picked up nearly as quickly as in the club.
The flurry of building comes after two years of tumultuous nationwide housing markets that didn’t miss the Big Sky area or the Yellowstone Club.
The recent boom also follows the first two years the club has been under new ownership that’s been rebranding a once-tarnished name, while working through the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.
According to Collins, it feels that they’re well on the way to recovery after the recession, and are helping the area rebound, as well.
Local builders are in the middle of nine other residential housing projects, four of which are slated for completion within the first weeks of 2012.
Home projects like these pump money into the Madison and Gallatin county economies by adding hundreds (at times as much as 1,000) of jobs, buying materials for sites from local lumberyards, and providing a sizable piece of the Madison County tax budget annually.
Andy “Cotton” Sarjahani lives in Bozeman and finished a graduate assistantship at Montana State last year working at a Community Supported Agriculture farm.
Last month, the 28-year-old Arkansas native began working as a laborer on a 15,000-square-foot home in the Yellowstone Club with Teton Heritage Builders. He enjoys the job and said it’s fulfilling his needs right now.
“As long as I can pay the bills and as long as I’m continuing to learn or there’s the opportunity to learn, I’ll stay there as long as they need me,” Sarjahani said.
He represents one of the hundreds of labor workers assembling the mansions that dot the mountainsides within the gates of the Yellowstone Club.
Tom Simkins, president of Simkins-Hallin Lumber Co. in Bozeman, said that when the area took a drastic dip from the construction boom of the early 2000s, his company suffered with it.
The company works exclusively with contractors, including numerous builders at the club. Three years after the growth rate began to lag in Gallatin and Madison counties, Simkins says he’s sending more building material through the canyon.
“Just the number of loads we take up there, I haven’t broken it down for the Yellowstone Club, but we’re going up there more all the time,” Simkins said.
The 13 houses constructed there last year averaged 7,500 square feet, said Mike Ducuennois, vice president of development at the club. The average general construction cost of each was $500 per square foot.
Ducuennois estimates that string of projects net $45 million in distributed proceeds, goods, services and taxes throughout the area.
That kind of impact resonates well with the governor.
“Those are Montana workers and Montana businesses that are selling goods and services and labor to build those homes. That’s good for the Montana economy,” Gov. Brian Schweitzer said in an interview with the Big Sky Weekly.
“Tourism and second home ownership is a big driver in Montana. I’m glad that the Yellowstone Club got their finances figured out.”
Conservative estimates put the number of construction jobs created during the past year around 300, but the number of workers on a construction site depends on the stage the project is in, so it’s difficult to gauge the number of employed construction workers at any given time of year.
“Currently I’ve got one, four, five, six…go to nine, nine employees right now,” said Jim Murphy, owner of Continental Construction, which builds at the club. “That’s carpenters, cabinet makers, masons and administrative help.”
Murphy continued work at the club throughout the bankruptcy and ownership transfer. He said the effects don’t stop with his employees, but percolate throughout the community as workers spend their wages.
“Those guys are turning around and spending money in the area too, there’s a big uptick in activity,” he said.
“During the concrete stage there’s six or seven,” said an architect who wanted to remain anonymous for this story. “After framing, and when you’re roughing in for plumbing and air and installing windows and siding, you could easily have 25 people on that project.”
And while club homeowners pay property taxes in Madison County, many of the workers come from Big Sky and Bozeman, due to the proximity and lack of access to Madison County.
Even with difficulties surrounding the ownership transfer in 2009, the club’s impact on the area made it integral to keeping things moving during the recession.
During peak months—summer and winter—the club employs 560 people. Nearly 200 of those are full time employees.
It was registered by Montana as a Class 7 employer in the latest count in June, meaning it can put up to 499 people to work. It has previously been registered a Class 8 employer, creating up to 999 jobs during peak months.
Together with Big Sky Resort, the Yellowstone Club is the top employer in Madison County. The two resorts are within the top 100 employers in the state.
“In turn, we take that responsibility very seriously,” Collins said.
A cycle of changes
Since the economic downturn, the club has tried to address trend changes in building styles head on.
Homes and buildings that were built five or six years ago displayed an air of opulence that also garnered waste.
And although the homes and amenities being built at the YC are still large, they’re 30 to 40 percent smaller than those that went up in its early building stage, Collins said.
The current owners see themselves as stewards of the land, and keep in mind the 900,000-acre Lee Metcalf Wilderness surrounding them, he added.
They’ve encouraged implementation of green building techniques, and some owners have installed geothermal heating and cooling pump systems. THB Energy Solutions is working on several of these projects at the club, which can save up to 500 percent efficiency versus propane, said THB’s Parker Thompson.
The club has also moved to lessen its pattern of propane waste by keeping fewer driveways, porches and swimming pools heated on its grounds.
The club would need to continue this new boom if it were to come close to reaching the hundreds of added houses it would take to reach capacity.
“We’ve been selling quite a bit of land, and that land is ultimately built upon,” Collins said. That cycle could continue until there is the potential for 864 front doors within the 13,600 acres the Yellowstone Club is allowed to develop.
Since its new owners took over in December 2009, the Yellowstone Club has made about $300 million in sales, and increased by 50 members, Collins said. Those sales include land, new houses and existing homes.
“We’re adding amenities to compete not only in this market, but for when we come out of this market,” Collins said. “We’re investing in the future, versus hanging on for dear life.”
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