Tamarack Resort Shuts Down

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Mar 5th 2009 at 7:02PM

Last July, we first heard about trouble at the Tamarack Resort in Donnelly, Idaho, now the luxury resort is officially closed. Tamarack was welcomed with acclaim when it was announced in 2003 and buyers committed more than $500 million for condos, houses and building sites bringing a big rush of Aspen-style prosperity to the area. Tennis stars Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf were attached to building a luxury hotel complex, the Fairmont Tamarack Local stores and restaurants flourished, jobs abounded and rents rose. Former President George W. Bush visited the resort for a summer hike in 2005. But a year ago, building slowed, the ski town's lifts still ran but tourism fell and unemployment rose.

Things started to go south over a year ago when the investor who had already put up money for the Fairmont Tamarack decided not to put up any more money for the project. This led the developers to slow construction. Combine this with the nationwide real estate droop and you have a recipe for a boom town gone bust. Tamarack went into default on its loan payments to the Credit Suisse bank and business entities involved in the project have filed for bankruptcy. Credit Suisse then followed with a foreclosure suit. An AP report reveals that the resort has lost $2.8 million since October when a California-based receiver began running it. The receiver has told a state judge that his company will use $1.7 million in new funding "to mothball the place."

Tamarack has seven ski lifts but of 2,100 planned residences just 250 are completed and other structures including residences, a mountain lodge and a village plaza remain partly finished. A small group of homeowners at Tamarack is trying to find a way to keep at least part of the resort open such as the health club. The homeowners association will keep the area open for owners. Some are angry about buying into a development which is, for the foreseeable future, a bit of a ghost town. Others think its just a matter of time before the economy rebounds and a developer with money to spend gets excited about Tamarack and finishes the project.

Gallery: Towers in Trouble

Tags: idaho, recession watch, RecessionWatch, resort, tamarack

Filed under: Real Estate Developments

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

yesireebub Mar 7th 2009 8:28AM

all that glitters is NOT gold when are people going to wake up and think that not every investment is going to be a gold mine and make them rich most of them are "fools gold" they appear to look good to get you to invest and then go south on you in a heart beat

jonasty814 Mar 7th 2009 1:13PM

Bloggers should get their facts straight. I personally worked on the sales & marketing of the Fairmont Tamarack and the decision to not proceed was a prudent one. It was not based on slowness of sales as we sold out our initial releases. The resort's future based on the type of loan, relied on real estate sales of other resort properties to finance construction. When RE sales slowed throughout the resort, there was no money left to finish construction on the Village. Tamarack is an incredible resort and the next developer (there will be one) will inherit a magical place for pennies on the dollar when done right will rival the Colorado & Utah resorts.

Bob Davis Mar 9th 2009 2:36PM

Your out of your mind! This will be a goast town in 3 to 4 years. Your the one that needs to get your facts straight. Talk about fools. You truly are one!

Johnny Mar 9th 2009 4:32PM

BOB DAVIS,

It's just sad that people like you can't post their opinions without name calling or getting personal. It just shows the lack of knowledge and people skills.

repukeslie7 Mar 9th 2009 4:36PM

I have been to Tamarack Resort several times. It is beautiful there and jonasty814 is right; it will bloom when the economy gets going again.

AHunter Mar 7th 2009 11:11PM

We visited Tamarack a few years ago, and the only conclusion I could come up with was to call it "Scamarack". The place is surrounded by a very low income area, that you have to drive through to get to the resort. The travel routes into the "resort" are the worst roadways to drive on, they are unsafe at best. The area is really nothing special, just a bunch of over priced homes in a remote area that is difficult to get to. The best place for skiing in Idaho is in Sun Valley...period!

hotnana Mar 9th 2009 5:00PM

This sounds like a very similar situation that is happening in Lake Las Vegas, Nevada... you have to travel through a very low income area (Henderson) to get there... construction has stopped and many stores have closed....

local Mar 9th 2009 2:14PM

Keep McCall local. The residents of this area of Idaho HATED Tamarack. Glad to see it gone. Outsiders come in build, prices go up and price the locals out. So much building for nothing. Now most of it sits empty as were the promises of the Tamarack investors.

bob Mar 9th 2009 3:07PM

Another victim of the Obama economy! Get on welfare, Obama is taxing anyone who works to give it to his welfare supporters.

paul Mar 9th 2009 3:22PM

I wonder how Obama managed to cause the bankruptcy of Tamarak even before he was elected! This man really is amazing! The fact that disaster befell the place probably had nothing to do with the fact that George W. Bush once visited it.

Patrice Bedrosian-Nagel Mar 9th 2009 8:08PM

This is unbelievable, now the people who didn't vote for Mccain think that President Obama is the reason that this resort has failed. Why don't you hateful bigots get a life and leave our President out of it..Gee, talk about sore losers....Next you will be praising Rev Freddie Phelps

Patrice

J W Mar 9th 2009 4:24PM

De caf, Bob, de caf

felix Mar 9th 2009 4:34PM

boo hoo

JAN Mar 9th 2009 5:20PM

Henderson, NV is a lovely place. Like everywhere else it has its down side, but dollar for dollar - a good place to live. As for Low Income - generalizing is never sensible, I would imagine that on the average Henderson has much higher incomes than some of the other routes into Las Vegas.

fred Mar 9th 2009 6:44PM

ohh i feel so bad for those unfortunates .is there any way i could maybe send some of my disability check to them ohh. all this hardship i just read about the english poptart that had to sell her bmw .what is the world coming too

Skiguy Mar 9th 2009 6:58PM

Remember the guy who said if we do not learn from history we are doomed to live it again? Well, Sun Valley in the end of the '30's was a nothing place at the end of the rail line. Aspen in the '40's was a run down mining town in the middle of no where. One of the biggest businesses in town was bottled water because all the streams were polluted with heavy metals draining out of the mines into the streams and water system. These two area have done OK. It will just take time and steady progress not over night success and one person making megamillions but rather a lot of people making just enough to live in paradise and not destroy it along the way.

Steve Mar 9th 2009 7:48PM

I've sat through Valbol, WestRock, then Tamarack. The locals never wanted this to infiltrate their town but the upityups never cared then and don't care now. I personally have had a Tamarack official promise me this resort will not raise taxes of existing homes in the area, our taxes have more than doubled since the resort opened.

griff dudding Mar 9th 2009 7:51PM

The entire economy has me entirely confused right now. I have purchased three brand new hyundais from the same dealership and used hyundai finance motor credit each time. Ironically each of the three previous times i buried negative equity into the next loan. Now I own an '06 hyundai sonata free and clear with about $6,000 cash value, but I was turned down for a $24,000 upgrade with that 6 down plus about 4 in dealer incentives, citing my debt-to-income ratio. Everything is ass-backward right now, even for those who live relatively conservatively and pay their bills. That resort in Idaho, as well as other overdeveloped areas, will rebound in 5-10 years. In the meantime we better get used to our high-mileage cars.

carlo oompah Mar 11th 2009 4:55PM

Anybody who got suckered into this fairy tale got exactly what they had coming to them. Sun Valley lucked out by being built in the 1940's ( See movie "Sun
Valley Serenade " with Sonja Henie & the Glenn Miller
Orchestra. ) with free promotion thanks to Hollywood on a resort that at the time of filming was not complete yet. Since then, as a result of having lived there myself in '77 & 78, no one in their right minds should have considered investing in what has become known as "Scamarack resort". Other family members who moved there & got out as quickly as they could refer to Idaho as the arm pit of the United States. As a truck driver, I can't stand even driving through the damn state. You have to live among the animals/people that live there to understand what I'm talking about.

N.W. Mar 10th 2009 11:44AM

I wonder how Bob Davis can call someone a fool with so many typographical errors in his comment:

YOUR (you're) out of your mind! This will be a GOAST (maybe...ghost) town in 3 to 4 years. YOUR (again, you're) the one that needs to get your facts straight. Talk about fools. You truly are one!

I had a really hard day - I needed that laugh. Thank you, Bob, thank you

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