Breckenridge Town Council:
At the March 13 Breckenridge Town Council meeting, several council members made negative statements about
Breckenridge Ski Resort’s (BSR) working relationship with Council related to parking. We disagree with these
remarks and would like to remind Council and the community of our many efforts to improve the parking
situation during the last several years. We also believe it is important for all stakeholders to be aware that BSR
has presented Council with viable alternatives to a Tiger Dredge structure on the Gold Rush or Gondola Lots.
Council has flatly rejected every proposal.
In 2015, Council began a public campaign to try to address parking. We agreed. Parking is a critical issue in
Breckenridge. However, we also thought more time was needed to plan and work cooperatively on specific and
detailed solutions.
Council said they had the solution and they were ready to go, publicly and repeatedly insisting that all studies had
been done and that F-Lot was the right spot for a parking structure to deliver an increase of 600 - 700 in-town
parking spaces, utilizing a lift-ticket tax.
BSR expressed concern about Council’s F-Lot structure: its size, its location, and its unintended consequences
potentially creating more traffic and congestion. We also questioned whether Council’s plan was the appropriate
use of tax dollars. Alternatively, we offered to build a South Gondola Lot structure to create 700 new parking
spaces-- with our own money -- in lieu of Council pursuing a lift-ticket tax. Council rejected our offer for South
Gondola Lot and was quite adamant that F Lot was the right solution, as was the urgency to pass a lift-ticket tax.
Based on Council’s public commitment to build 600 - 700 in-town spaces on F-Lot, BSR agreed in good faith not
to oppose the lift-ticket tax, and to provide an annual guarantee of the new tax of at least $3.5 million per year,
increased each year by inflation.
After the Town elections in April of 2016, Council questioned its prior position and decided that F-Lot was the
wrong location. We met with Council and suggested deferring the tax to create time to develop a thoughtful plan
to move forward. We weren’t asking for the lift-ticket tax to be cancelled, just deferred a year so that guests
weren’t paying a tax without a plan for the dollars raised. Council said no.
As a result, the lift-ticket tax was implemented on July 1, 2016 with no plan for a parking project. To date,
Council has collected over $7 million and has delivered no new in-town parking – not even a plan for the
promised 600 - 700 new spaces.
Council subsequently made two unsolicited offers to BSR to buy the Gondola Lots for parking and a mixed-use
commercial development. BSR indicated that it would not sell the Gondola lots because we did not want give up
control of the most critical skier parking for the resort. However, BSR did offer to sell the Gold Rush Lot to the
Town for a new parking structure. We even offered to reinvest the proceeds from the sale directly back into the
community for public infrastructure and employee housing. Council rejected that proposal.

 In 2018, Council announced a new plan to build a $32 million F-Lot/Tiger Dredge structure that creates merely
265 new spaces more than what is there today. This amount of parking, with a very high cost per new space, is far
short of the 600 -700 new in-town spaces Council promised in lobbying for the lift-ticket tax in 2015. In addition,
both the community and Council themselves expressed concern and dissatisfaction with the Tiger Dredge plan.
Apparently in its frustration, Council publically criticized BSR for not being a good partner and not offering the
Gondola Lots. Council seems to forget that we actually had offered a deal on the Gondola Lots and Gold Rush in
the past – both of which were categorically rejected with no meaningful engagement from Council.
Shortly after the March 13 Breckenridge Town Council meeting, the partnership looking to develop the East Peak
8 site, which includes Breck Grand Vacations (whose principal, until recently, sat on Council) approached BSR
about a partnership whereby the Town would partially fund a parking structure on the Gondola Lots and BSR
would maintain ownership and operational control of the parcel. To be sure, this was the first time someone had
suggested a potential compromise that might allow the Gondola Lots to be used as a parking solution. We
immediately contacted the Mayor and Town Manager, subsequently met with them in person twice, and provided
numerous scenarios for Council and BSR to partner to provide new in-town parking for the community.
BSR offered to make our South Gondola Lot available to the Town, at no cost, for Council to build a parking
structure creating an increase of 700 new in-town parking spaces. South Gondola Lot would be held in a
partnership owned by both BSR and the Town, with BSR controlling winter parking and the Town controlling
parking the rest of the year and BSR and the Town sharing in all parking revenue. Under this offer, Council
would have secured parking in exactly the spot it wanted, Council would have preserved F-Lot and Tiger Dredge
for other opportunities without having to pay for any new land. BSR would have lost its development opportunity
on South Gondola Lot with no compensation. This approach would have allowed Council to fulfill its 2015
parking promises in a better, cost-effective, location for local residents and visiting guests. But Council rejected
this offer and demanded that we transfer full ownership of South Gondola Lot to the Town, and relinquish any
protection to ensure the preservation of our critical guest parking. Even if some believe that the Town has every
right to constantly change its mind about its parking plans – it is absolutely reasonable for BSR to want to
maintain ownership and control of our existing skier parking. What business would give up its parking lot to the
government?
While we understand the community will always hold us to a high standard- in this situation, we are not sure what
more we could do. Council has implemented a massive tax on skiers and riders (driving significant bonding
capacity for the Town) - and by 2019 Council will have collected almost $11 million without adding a single new
in-town parking space. We also understand that many in the community are less sensitive to a tax paid mainly by
tourists, but even if that’s true, spending it wisely and getting the absolute most for that tax is critical.
We remain very worried about the long-term future for in-town parking for Breckenridge, with Tiger Dredge
adding few new spaces and talk of actually reducing parking on Airport Road. But, at this point we feel we have
exhausted every possible option to work collaboratively with the Town. We are hopeful that the Council will find
other ways to deliver the parking that is much needed for the entire Breckenridge community and which was the
entire basis of the new tax.

Respectfully submitted,

Chris Jarnot, Executive Vice President
Vail Resorts Mountain Division

John Buhler, Chief Operating Officer
Breckenridge Ski Resort