Timberline: Whole resort not being sold
Jim Balow. The Charleston Gazette. Charleston, W.V.:Jul 6, 1999. p.1D
No, the Timberline ski area in Canaan Valley is not for sale, despite what you may have read last week.
"The whole resort is not for sale," said Tom Blanzy, manager of Timberline Four Seasons Resort, which operates the Tucker County ski area.
However, Herz Herz & Reichle, the resort's corporate owners, are trying to sell several hundred acres of undeveloped property that have been earmarked for years as the site of a future golf course, Blanzy said. The property lies to the south of the road leading into the resort from W.Va. 32.
The owners - Philadelphia physician Frederick Reichle, his sister Rose Marie Herz and her son, Frederick Herz - have long been looking for a partner to build the golf course, said their lawyer, T.R. Ross of Elkins.
"They've been seeking qualified buyers or investors for a number of years," Ross said. But cash flow problems and environmental difficulties have apparently pushed them to market the property more aggressively.
Ross was in Charleston last week for a circuit court hearing involving a lawsuit filed against Timberline by the state Office of Employment Programs.
State officials filed suit seeking payment of outstanding unemployment compensation premiums of about $158,000, Ross said.
Timberline owes the state hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes and payments to the unemployment and workers' compensation funds, mostly from a number of years ago, Ross said.
The resort had been paying off these obligations under repayment agreements with the agencies involved. It had repaid about half of the more than $200,000 it owed on unemployment insurance, he said.
But cash flow problems this spring forced the resort to default on those repayment plans, and one agency sued.
A June 28 hearing was to see whether the court should issue a preliminary injunction to close the resort, Ross said. The court denied that.
"There is no substantial business in the off season, and they had the protection of liens {for the unpaid amounts} anyway," he said.
Ross blamed the cash flow problems on two factors - a dry fall and a poor year for skiing.
Last summer the Timberline Homeowners Association, which is separate from the ski resort corporation, had to drain Spruce Island Lake to repair a dam. The lake serves as the water supply for the ski resort's snowmaking operations.
Because of dry weather throughout the fall, rainfall did not refill the lake as expected. When cold weather arrived, the resort made special arrangements to pump water from the Blackwater River to make snow, Ross said. To do so, it had to install about $100,000 of pipes and pumps to move the water from the river to the mountain.
"That money was diverted from the cash flow and was not available at the end of the season to keep up the obligations with the state," Ross said.
"Additionally, there was very little snowfall all winter, so skier visits were down. Those two things were really critical for the past season," said.
A ruling by the state appeals board further complicated the resort's plans by effectively blocking further development in the area. The Environmental Quality Board upheld a previous ruling by the Office of Water Resources that limits additional sewage discharges into the Blackwater River.
According to Timberline manager Blanzy, an existing sewage plant serves some 320 customers, including the ski area. The sewage plant has additional capacity to serve any additional homes built on existing lots in Timberline, he said, including another 26 lots in the Winterset area, the resort's newest residential development, Blanzy said.
But any major project, like a golf course or a planned expansion of the ski operation, would require a new sewage treatment plan.
"There are no additional waste loads being permitted for the Blackwater River," he said. "Not to say there are no technical alternatives that can be explored.
"One of the alternatives that West Virginia has a state guideline for is land application of wastewater. It's used elsewhere in the United States, literally hundreds of areas. There is some support for this in the various state agencies, and we feel this is a reasonable approach.
"Other alternate technologies might need more engineering work because the state does not have guidelines for these technologies."
The sewage limitations have hindered efforts to find investors for the golf course, Blanzy acknowledged. He said it would cost at least $2 million to $3 million to build an 18-hole course. "You could spend $6 million, $7 million on a golf course.
"The golf course had gone through all the permit process with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers," he said.
Ross said the sale of the golf course property would fix the resort's cash-flow problems. "I don't know an asking price, but there is interest being expressed."
The buyers need not promise to build a golf course, Ross said. "That was always the plan, and they {the owners} feel that would enhance the ski area, but that's not an overriding concern."
Blanzy still hopes the golf course gets built.
"Personally, and most of the people involved would agree, I'd prefer someone who would come in and build the golf course," he said. "We would hope that would happen."