John Byrne enters 4th year of ownership at Alyeska

By Ken Smith
Turnagain Times

John Byrne is entering his fourth year of ownership of Alyeska Resort. Alyeska is owned through Byrne's Utah-based real-estate investment company, Cirque Property, LLC.

Byrne bought the resort in a distress sale during an auction of properties from Seibu Corporation on Dec. 1, 2006.

Since that time, he has invested millions of dollars to improve both the hotel and the ski area.

But it's only the beginning of a business venture that has challenged even Byrne, a seasoned real estate investor and developer.

He sat down with the Turnagain Times to talk about present and future plans for the resort.

We met in the Aurora Bar & Grill, which has undergone a complete makeover, with a redesigned bar and lounge. It's one of many changes The Hotel Alyeska has undergone over the past three years.

Byrne said work on the hotel is completed and now he is focused on the future of the ski area.

Byrne started by first mentioning that the resort will be open for skiing 172 days this year compared to 151 days last season.

“The other biggy that we're doing this year is extending night skiing,” he said. “We're adding two more weeks of night skiing to the schedule.”

The change will extend night skiing (4 p.m. – 9 p.m.) through March 27, an additional two weeks, which will allow college students on spring break from Anchorage and Fairbanks to take advantage of the evening hours on the mountain—more skiing means more money in lift ticket sales.

“We're also going to run the tram on the weekends through May,” he said, “that way if the conditions permit we'll be able to allow skiing in May. You know there's a lot of people that wish we had May skiing. Last year we made the decision to not to have it and also to not run the tram, and so when there turned out to be a couple of weekends that would have worked, we weren't in a position to operate because of manpower and vacations, etc.”

He added that May skiing will be free for season pass holders with a goal of selling day lift tickets to skiers attracted to the warm sunny skies and extended daylight.

Even if the tram was running in May last year, however, there would not have been any skiing because the eruption of Mt. Redoubt spread a dense layer of ash all over the mountain, ending skiing in the first week of April.

Nonetheless, Byrne would like to be prepared this year to allow skiing into late spring, always a treat for the locals.

Making the resort a year-round destination is a goal Byrne has expressed since day one of ownership. He would like to see season pass holders purchasing passes as early as June, which would allow them access to the mountain in the summer for mountain biking and hiking via the tram.

“The deal with summer and tram ridership in the summer is that if you buy next year's pass on sale in June 1; it will work for hiking the new North Face trail in the summer and for just accessing the tram,” Byrne said.

When talking to Byrne, his passion for skiing is obvious. He lives in Alta, Utah, a place where he's skied every season with his father and brothers.

Much of Byrne's decisions over the last three years has been to make the mountain more skiable for both kids and adults, adding more beginner and intermediate terrain, but also expert terrain, such as tree skiing accessible through the new North Star Gate.

Getting on the mountain was made easier last year with a new a new high speed quad chairlift built by the Sitzmark restaurant, and a long-term goal of building a tram to the top of Mt. Alyeska to open up the backside of the mountain to a backcountry, wilderness skiing experience, usually limited to helicopter skiing.

Byrne, 50, is an avid heli-skier, however, his passion for skiing steep, challenging terrain, may have caught up with him. The day we conducted the interview, back in late November, he was just getting back on his feet after having back surgery due to complications from a back injury that developed from years of extreme skiing.

But the injury did not change Byrne's tone or pitch, his enthusiasm for future projects at Alyeska masked any pain he felt from his back.

Byrne is always pushing to open the mountain to more family friendly skiing, but his real passion for the business and the sport of skiing comes out when he talks about the more radical and challenging terrain he's opening at Alyeska.

“We did quite a bit of glading, and we extended West Line (terrain to the right of the tram line, which used to be called Cockroach) further down the mountain,” he said. “It's going to start to open up this forest here for skiing. In the first three years, we've done a tremendous amount of work geared towards the beginner and intermediate, geared towards families, and we're going to continue to do that kind of work. But this is geared towards the expert skier, and it's going to open up great low-light tree skiing, super steep really rowdy tree skiing.”

Byrne believes the gladed skiing terrain at Alyeska will be the most noteworthy new terrain to be added to any ski resort in North America this year.

“You know, I ski all over the world with the world's best skiers,” he said, “this is as rowdy a place you'll ever go, man, it's exciting!”

He considers the gladed skiing to be double black diamond terrain (the highest level of expert skiing). The gladed skiing along with a new 300-foot super pipe, are the two biggest elements of mountain news this year at the resort, Byrne said.

He said he purchased a Zaugg pipe cutter at a cost of over a $100,000, to shape the super pipe. And with material and excavation costs, the super pipe will cost over a half-million dollars.

But, Byrne is not afraid to invest his money for mountain improvements and new features. He figures the super pipe will amount to 50 or more additional passes a year, brining in much needed lift ticket sales. The pipe will also be lit so boarders can ride it at night.

Another big development off the mountain, Byrne said, is that this past summer, the resort is underway with its first residential development on Verbier Way off Alberg Road, the access road to the resort.

“It's going to open up three commercial lodging sites,” Byrne said, “and nine single family homes, and that's our first real estate development project since I've been here.”

He said the ski in and ski out sites close to the mountain are well suited for time-sharing, but currently he does not have a company that wants to pursue it, but a lot of companies have expressed interest.

“I think time sharing would make great sense for Girdwood and for Alyeska,” Byrne said. “Because it's about pillows for us. We want to sell more lift tickets, and we need a bigger bed base to make the mountain work. We need to sell more tickets every day of the week.”

Up to a 100 rooms would be available for the time sharing units, and two smaller buildings could get up to 20 to 30 rooms along with the nine single family homes.

Byrne said he is only interested in selling the lots at this time, but he's not going to involved in the “vertical construction.”

In the hotel, all the interior has been redesigned along with new carpeting, and new beds and furniture have been put in all the rooms and suites.

Native Alaskan artwork and sculptures have also been added to the lobby and lounging areas.

There are seven restaurants at the resort. Last year the Aurora Bar & Grill was redesigned and now offers breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Seven Glaciers restaurant at the top of the mountain was also redesigned. Byrne hopes to work on one restaurant a year.

He also wants to change the food concept at the Daylodge and redevelop the food at the Glacier Express at the top of the mountain.

For Byrne, who has made a living of buying and selling real estate, the process of developing a ski resort—his first—is something he hopes will result in a profitable venture, something the resort struggled to achieve under the previous owner.

And he hopes to put in less hours.

“It was a lot of work, a lot more work than I thought it was going to be for me personally,” he said, laughing. “You know, the first year it was just insane—100 hour weeks; it seemed like we were just running around putting out fires. Actually today, I must say, it's gotten to be a lot different. I might now spend about 15 hours on the resort, in the beginning it was like 100 then 80 then 50 hours. Last year I was working a little more than full-time.”

Byrne said they flushed out the management team, upper middle management with “some really great people” that he said has relieved him of the burden of having to be involved in the resort everyday. But he still considers himself to be an owner-operator.

“When I'm at home now, it's gotten to be the kind of work I thought I was signing up for,” he said. “I thought when I bought the resort that it would be about a half-time job for me. It's proven to be a lot more than that.”

Byrne said the resort has yet to break even overall, although they came close last year.

“We didn't make it to the black last year, but you can definitely see it on the horizon,” he said, “and I'm hoping that with a decent economy this year, it will be the first year the resort is cash flow neutral. It's very complex, the issues of the resort are very complex.”