Curbed Ski really thought that things couldn't get any more dramatic in the Park City Mountain Resort-Talisker lawsuit, but man we were wrong. We've documented the battle over PCMR's alleged faulty lease renewal, whether it was Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz offering to buy the base facilities in a very friendly (and very public) letter or John Cumming, CEO of Powdr Corp (PCMR's parent company) claiming Vail was trying to bully its way to a cheap takeover. But PCMR's latest announcement just might take the cake, saying that if they lose the lawsuit PCMR plans to dismantle and remove most of the area's chair lifts. Wait, what?!?
In court papers filed last week, the president and general manager of PCMR, Jenni Smith, outlined the resort's intentions to remove all of the lifts except for Jupiter, Thaynes, and Motherlode.
How is this possible? While Talisker's eviction notice to PCMR maintains that structures and improvements "that are affixed" to the property belong to Talisker, PCMR disagrees. Smith and company assert that they can remove most of the lifts because although the ski lift towers are bolted to concrete footings, they are not "otherwise affixed to the land."
This distinction would allow PCMR to remove the towers, chairs, cables, the grips attached to the chairs, and the bullwheels that move the cables. Alan Sullivan, PCMR's lead attorney, added fuel to the fire, "If we are forced to vacate the property, we will take our property with us."
So how did Vail and Talisker respond? They still believe that PCMR does not have the legal right to remove the chairlifts and hinted that if this happened, Vail Resorts would just replace the lifts with "state of the art equipment."
So what will happen next Curbediverse? Right now we feel like we're watching the ugliest break-up ever.
· PCMR intends to dismantle, remove most lifts if it loses lawsuit [Park Record]
· Fight Over Park City Mountain Resort Turns Nasty [Curbed Ski]
· Vail Offers to Buy Park City Base Facilities, PCMR Says Hell No [Curbed Ski]
· All PCMR-Talisker Coverage [Curbed Ski Archives]
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