Back in October 2005, Starwood Capital Group purchased a majority stake in Mammouth Mountain, and currently they own the ski area along with Intrawest (I always thought Starwood Capital would purchase Intrawest) and one of the original founders of the ski area. Since that time very little news about the development and growth of the mountain has been released – except for the annoucement that one of the initial 1 Hotels was to be located on site. (And even that seems to have taken a back seat for now).

Even though Starwood Capital has a lot of experience in running hospitality venues – it doesn’t seem as though they are handling the day-to-day operations of Mammoth Mountain, meaning they are not in charge of ensuring the rooms are booked, the ski lifts are working and the employees are being paid – Starwood is more hands on involved with the real estate side, ensuring that the property is being built out and developed. (I’m probably over simplifying that though).

Last week, Starwood & Mammoth Mountain issued a press release that I’m very surprised has not been picked up by alot of hospitality news outlets.. In fact, this press release is pretty much non-existent, on the internet – I had to contact Mammoth Mountain directly to ask for a copy of it (which they quickly provided – so its not as though it’s something they are keeping under wraps).

Pretty much the press release states how Starwood Capital is merging two companies – MMSA Development LLC, and MMSA LLC’s Planning and Real Estate (MMSA= Mammoth Mountain Ski Area), which will enable better coordination and a quicker time to market for any projects that are going to be occuring within the property.

It doesn’t really go into any detail as to what the two divisions did, or what issues occured prior to this combination, but from what I gather – MMSA Development probably was the company that was in charge of actually developing the properties, whereas they had to listen to what MMSA LLC’s Planning and Real Estate division wanted. MMSA Development was a completely seperate company and since it’s only real purpose was to develop within the MMSA property, it made sense to combine it into one company.

A few of the projects that are on the drawing board, now that the companies have merged are:

Altis – 24 new ski-in ski-out luxury townhouses (townhouses that are literally on the base of the ski slope, you can pretty much come down the mountain, and stop right in front of your townhouse)

Mammoth Mountain Gateway – Starwood’s attempt at helping the redevelopment of downtown Mammoth California.

Eagle Lodge – What seems to be a new ski-lodge which will also contain retail & and a hotel

Sierra Star – An existing area with a master plan that is being upgraded to allow hotels, residences and recreational amenities. Sierra Star is Mammoth’s 18 hole golf course

Village at Mammoth – To be expanded to include 400 more hotel rooms, residences, and retail. This is where the 1 Hotel Mammoth Mountain was supposed to be built.

So what does this all mean? It means that Starwood Capital is still very committed to making Mammoth Mountain one of the best ski resorts in America – quite possibly putting it on par with what you find in Vail in regards to luxury and amenities. It also means that current and future development will probably ramp up much quicker than it has in the past.

One interesting point in the press release was how the plan is to encourage hotel development within the Mammoth Mountain property – which is interesting since Starwood Capital has their own three hotel brands, yet they still seem to be open to allowing other brands to come in. That says a lot for Starwood and shows that it’s not all about them.

Additionally, now maybe we will see the development of the 1 Hotel which I had heard was postponed due to a dispute over the land where it was to be built.

I’m very happy to see some activity with Starwood Capital & Mammoth Mountain. Starwood’s involvement with Mammoth has been so silent that there have been times that I wasn’t even sure that they owned the property, although in Starwood’s defense – they are not one to plaster their name all around their real estate holdings, they are much happier being private – which in my opinion is great – keeps a shroud of mystery around everything.

andrew@alconic-inc.com