Spirit Mountain: The forgotten bailouts

Spirit Mountain is Duluth’s version of a sports stadium issue. This is a very short-sighted, narrow-minded approach to the whole picture. The millions that come into the Duluth economy, not spent at Spirit Mountain, by skiers and snowboarders is a huge factor in its value. As I understood it, that was the point for the project initially. Parks, lakeside amenities, and other attractions cost money and don’t generate direct revenue at all but nobody questions their value to the community.

The debt servicing for $23M of additional “investments” into Spirit Mountain would be almost $2M per year. So a current subsidy of $1.1M, plus another $2M would then become $3M of subsidy per year. The math is simple. Does Duluth want to continue to spend $1.1M per year to support the mountain and have it fade away over the near future, or spend $3M per year and have the mountain fade away over the long future? It cannot be looked at as revenue neutral, ever. That is not the question. It has to be looked at as a costly tourist type attraction that costs significant money every year. Does that justify the priority for spending that it has always been given for 45 years? Lester Golf was supported for almost 90 years, then the City finally punted on that. Is Spirit Mountain halfway done with its life cycle? That is the $23M dollar question. The Return on Investment cited by the “expert” is a wild guess and there is no way to accurately determine that value. If Duluth wants to run the ski hill, it should pony up the money, and not worry about being cash neutral.