Timeline of Okemo Lease Transfers at Mount Sunapee
Friday, 13 November 2009 12:47
In the years since the signing of the lease agreement between the State of New Hampshire and Okemo, monitoring the legal ownership of the lease for the ski area inside Mount Sunapee State Park has become steadily more complicated.
Yet, ownership of the lease is crucially important to understanding how the resulting activities--commercial resort operations and development--impact our park's treasured natural, cultural, recreational, and historical resources.
The first and very controversial signing of the lease by the Okemo Mountain (VT) operators Tim & Diane Mueller in 1998 has been followed by lesser known or understood lease transfers from Okemo to various sub-entities owned in part by Okemo. Then, most recently in December 2008, Okemo sold the lease to an entirely new owner, CNL Resort Lifestyle Properties.
What follows is a timeline of the lease transfers with some brief analysis.
July 1, 1998: Initial lease term between Okemo Mountain, Inc. and State of NH begins. Lease includes language allowing lease transfers, "The Operator may assign, or otherwise transfer any interest in this Agreement with the prior written approval of the State. Services required under this Agreement may be delegated or subcontracted by the Operator with the prior written approval of the State. Such approval shall not be unreasonably withheld by the State.
July 1998: Okemo Mountain, Inc. assigns a collateral interest to BankBoston to secure financing for projects at Mount Sunapee and other Okemo properties. Lease mortgaged.
April 1999: Okemo assigns full interest to a new NH-based entity, Sunapee Difference LLC. Okemo states that this is done for tax and branding purposes.
November 2001: Sunapee Difference LLC assigns a collateral interest to KeyBank of Ohio to secure a $30 million mortgage loan to finance development at Okemo Mountain and further improvements at Mount Sunapee.
March 2002: Newly-formed Triple Peaks LLC (TPLLC) acquires Sunapee Difference LLC as subsidiary. No lease transfer recorded, though the parent company TPLLC now owns the lease.
March 2004: TPLLC (through its sub-entity Sunapee Difference LLC) assigns a collateral interest to KeyBank of Ohio to secure an undisclosed refinancing related to TPLLC's acquisition of Crested Butte Mountain Resort in Colorado.
December 2008: TPLLC sells the lease and all hard assets to CNL Lifestyle Properties (CNL), a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) based in Florida.
