Here & Now

Cable, WI Chair Talks About Potential Of Telemark Renovation

Frederica Freyberg:

Southeast Wisconsin is getting Foxconn. Now an announcement about how northern Wisconsin could see a major redevelopment project. Granted, it’s on a much smaller scale, but it’s regionally important. The iconic Telemark Lodge Resort in Cable has seen more than its share of ups and downs over its 70-year history. From its start as a ski hill in 1947 to its heyday in the 1970s when big-name acts played its grand venues as the ski lodge expanded into a major resort and conference center. It sits adjacent to the starting gate for the international Birkebeiner cross-country ski race. But by the mid ’80s the resort’s original owner filed bankruptcy. And since then, the resort has been bought and sold several times, each time reopened only to be closed again, a rollercoaster of dashed promised for renovation and revitalization. So the question now is can the latest $47 million reno and expansion announced by new buyers stick this time? The developers are looking for taxpayer assistance, which needs action from the legislature and the governor. Cable area officials were in Madison this week trying to set that in motion, including Town of Cable Chairman Art Hancock. He joins us from Ashland and thanks very much for doing so.

Art Hancock:

I'm glad to do so.

Frederica Freyberg:

Well, so what are you and others seeking from the state?

Art Hancock:

What we’re seeking from the state is the permission to establish a tax increment district. We’re a small town and TIF legislation and TIF districts are usually only granted to villages and larger cities. Because we don’t meet the criteria with the existing legislation, we were down in Madison to try to get them to give us special legislation so that we can establish a district in our town.

Frederica Freyberg:

What's been the response in Madison?

Art Hancock:

I thought it went really quite positively yesterday. We met before the Ways and Means Committee for the Assembly and for the most part they were very positive. They did have some concerns that as a town they don’t want us to get in over our heads with financing it too much. But I think we allayed their fears and I feel like we’re on a positive track.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is there any kind of dollar figure as to how much the new buyers or the developers would like to see?

Art Hancock:

The Town of Cable has not entered into any negotiations with the developer at this time. There have been some numbers that have been thrown out, but they’re just kind of preliminary numbers. The resort is in such a dilapidated state right now that the amount of money that needs to go and that can go into TIF-allowed projects, it’s really kind of preliminary right now to determine that.

Frederica Freyberg:

Now, I spoke to one local in Cable who said that she is excited by the prospect of bringing Telemark back, but also scared to death. Does that pretty much measure how people there feel?

Art Hancock:

I thing that’s probably a pretty good estimate of what most folks in Cable feel. The sense I get is that most of us are cautiously optimistic. Telemark has been our flagship for years and years, and it’s been — we have folks in Cable who — couples that have met on the slopes of Telemark. And it was such an economic powerhouse for so many years. So the prospects of it opening again are huge, though we have over the last few years had a number of potential developers that have fallen through. I think people in Cable are a bit suspect but everybody that I've talked to anyway is very optimistic.

Frederica Freyberg:

So what do you envision as the best-case scenario for that property?

Art Hancock:

Well, the best case is we have a current developer that is interested in purchasing the property, has actually entered into a purchase agreement with the current owner of the property. They hope to close on the property at the end of January. That’s the first — would be the first big milestone. And then within the last next year or year and a half, for them to develop the property just along the same lines that they are hoping to — that they’ve projected that they are.

Frederica Freyberg:

What could it mean for the economy and jobs in the region?

Art Hancock:

We had a — the Town of Cable and Bayfield County funded a market feasibility study. And we — and part of that study, they looked at some of those numbers of what it might mean to the community. And they’re projecting that it might result in about a $25 million increase in direct visitor spending to Bayfield County. So a lot of that would come right into our town, and we would be very happy with those results.

Frederica Freyberg:

Why do you think, if you do, that this time might be the charm for Telemark?

Art Hancock:

Well, the current developer is — they’ve been around the block. They’ve done these projects before. The developers that have come through that tried to just kind of renovate the existing building that was built in the ’70s, that hasn’t worked out. But this developer wants to do a complete redevelopment of the property. And it’s a different thing. And I think their marketing plan is quite different as well. And I think that that will prove to be successful.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Well, we hope so. Art Hancock out of Ashland, thanks very much for joining us.

Art Hancock:

Thank you.