$135M bond issue for Moosehead ski area set for FAME public hearing

A ski lift with freshly groomed snow below with a skier on it and mountains in the background

Courtesy / Friends of the Mountain Provident Group-Moosehead Lake L3C is applying for bonds to redevelop the ski area six miles north of Greenville into a year-round ski resort, with marina slips, housing and lodging.

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By Maureen Milliken

The future Big Moose Lake Ski area has had a bumpy past.
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An application for bonds that would raise $135 million to develop a ski resort on Moosehead Lake will go before a Finance Authority of Maine public hearing Monday.

Provident Group-Moosehead Lake L3C plans the resort for Big Moose Township, which is in the unorganized territory, about six miles north of Greenville, at the site of a once-thriving resort now run by a nonprofit as a small ski area. The L3C is the development team of Provident Resources Group, of Baton Rouge, La., in partnership with Big Lake Development LLC and Treadwell Franklin Inc., headed by Perry Williams, who lives in Louisiana and Spruce Head.

The plans for Moosehead Lake Ski Resort include a new base lodge, a hotel and restaurant complex, pedestrian village, a marina with 150 to 200 slips, and 450 residential units on 1,700 acres. Once it's built out, the resort is expected to generate up to $2.9 million a year in revenue for the region and create up to 477 jobs, which would make it the second-largest employer in the county after the Guilford site of Puritan Medical Products, which has 500 employees.

Big Lake Operations will operate the ski assets, except the hotel and restaurant, which will be run by a hotel management firm, according to the developers. The resort would replace the ski area operated by the nonprofit Friends of the Mountain. It would be "a year-round mountain community," rather than just a ski area, developers told the Piscataquis County Commissioners at their March 23 meeting.

The three-member commission approved the project in February. The approval put plans on "the fast track," Williams told the commissioners last month. At the March meeting, the developers said they are pursuing a tax increment financing agreement necessary for the bond financing. That goes to a public hearing April 20. With the TIF, a portion of the taxes from the non-residential part of the development would be invested back for 30 years into public infrastructure needed to support the project and other development in the area.

If approved, plans are to open the slopes for the 2021-22 ski season. Williams told the commissioners that developers want to get financing in place by May, so a new chairlift can be ordered and in place by then. The rest of the resort would be built out over the next two to three years.

PIscataquis County is the least populated of Maine's 16 counties, with just less than 17,000 residents in an area the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined. It has the state's second-lowest area median income after Washington County, $35,521; the overall state median household income is 58,924.

Steve Levesque, president of the Moosehead Lake Economic Development Corp. board, said the project is "a game-changer for the county."

“It’s a challenge to find economic opportunities for the region, but we see the resurgence and the redevelopment of the mountain as a key opportunity to stabilize the economy of the area," Levesque said in the MLEDC winter newsletter. He is also executive director of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority, which oversees Brunswick Landing.

The plans include ski-in/ski-out condominiums, townhomes, restaurants, outdoor activities, a boutique hotel and "rustically elegant conference facilities tucked into the surrounding forest." That scenery and natural setting mean that guests can "enjoy everything from alpine and cross-country skiing, snowboarding and snowmobiling in the winter, to hiking, mountain biking, zip lining, boating, whitewater rafting and fly fishing on Maine's largest lake and countless streams and ponds in summer and fall."

The ski area that first opened in 1963 on the north side of Big Moose Mountain, and for a while was an economic boon for the region, has had a bumpy past, with several stalled development plans. In 2019, the county joined a 2016 lawsuit by the state that claimed owner Jim Confalone used the property to secure more than $4 million in loans but didn't put the money into the ski area.

At the time, county commissioners said they wanted to return the mountain to being an economic force in the area. In December, Superior Court Judge Bill Stokes ordered Confalone to return the resort to the condition it was in when he bought it in 1995; Confalone instead agree to sell it to the developers.

Big Moose Lake Ski Area timeline

What will soon become Moosehead Lake Ski Area has had a bumpy nearly 60-year history. [Information from newenglandskihistory.com and news reports]

1963 — The ski resort developed by Big Squaw Mountain Corp., on the north side of what was then Big Squaw Mountain, opens with four trails and a 600-vertical-foot T-bar lift and a rope tow.

1967 — The ski area adds a double chairlift to the upper mountain, increasing the vertical drop from 600 feet to 1,700 feet; adds a two-story lodge to the upper mountain and five miles of new trails.

1969 — Scott Paper Co. provides equity for new new trails, and construction of a hotel adjacent to the upper base lodge begins.

1970 — Scott Paper Co. buys the ski area, with plans to turn it into a wilderness resort. The new Squaw Mountain Lodge opens with more than 100 rooms and an indoor pool.

1974 — Scott Paper Co. loses $250,000 in the 1973-74 season and decides to sell, but can't find a buyer for the resort, which is now 2,300 acres and valued at $3.5 million. The company transfers the property to the state.

1976 — Duane Lander, who had been general manager, leases the ski resort from the state.

1980 — The state Bureau of Parks and Lands puts the property out to bid, and picks Lutz Wallem, but the deal falls through.

1986 — State sells the resort for $300,000 to Big Squaw Mountain Corp., headed by Lander. As part of the agreement, the group must invest hundreds of thousands of dollars into the mountain, including a $440,000 triple chairlift on the lower mountain.

1990 — Big Squaw Mountain Corp. files for bankruptcy and ithe resort is auctioned to James Clair Sr., who was president of the corporation, in August. It's renamed Moosehead Resort and Ski Area.

1991 — General Managers Pam and Terry Kimball are awarded a long-term lease of the ski area, and they rename it Moosehead Resort on Big Squaw Mountain.

1992 — A group of six men lease the area, operating only the lower mountain and calling it Ski Squaw on Big Squaw Mountain.

1993 — Carolyn and Tom Hendrickson take over operations and reopen the upper mountain.

1995 — James Confalone, as Mooshead Mountain Resort Inc., buys the lease in January, and the resort in August, for $500,000, with an agreement to improve the resort.

2000 — The Maine Legislature passes a law that the pejorative "squaw" be replaced on all state property, and renames the mountain and township it's in Big Moose. The law doesn't apply to businesses, and, despite pressure, Confalone refuses to remove the word from the resort's name.

2004 — The grip on the Thompson double chairlift on the upper mountain fails, plunging one chair 30 feet to the ground. Four people are injured, and sking on the upper mountain is permanently closed.

2007 — Piscataquis County Commissioners elicit a promise from Confalone, who lives in Florida, that he'll begin operating the mountain as a full-service ski resort, reopening the upper mountain, but that doesn't happen and at some point, the hotel closes.

2010 — With the hotel and upper mountain no longer operating, and the resort not making snow, county commissioners question whether they should continue to plow and sand the private road to the resort. Confalone, through the Bangor Daily News, offers a $1 a year, 30-year lease of the resort to Piscataquis County. The commissioners don't act on the offer. At the end of the ski season that spring, the resort closes for the next three years.

2011 — Vandals cause extensive damage to the property over Memorial Day weekend, smashing through the doors of the base buildings with an ax, destroying vending machines, throwing TV sets and chairs through windows and into the empty swimming pool and ransacking offices.

2014 — The Friends of Squaw Mountain lease the resort from Confalone for $1 a year, operating the lower mountain in February and March, an agreement that's extended through 2021.

2016 — The state sues Confalone, saying an agreement to make improvements to the ski area when he bought it was never followed through with, that he illegally harvested $136,000 worth of timber on the mountain, and that he used the property to secure loans but didn't put the money back into the resort. The state says Confalone's failure “to invest, maintain, expand and operate the entire ski area and resort has had a devastating impact on the economy of Greenville and surrounding communities.”

2019 — Piscataquis County joins the suit, saying they want the mountain to return to being an economic force in the region.

2020 — After Squaw Valley Ski Resort in California announces it will change its name after the 2021 ski season, Penobscot Nation Tribal Ambassador Mulian Dana and others request that Big Squaw do the same.

November 2020 — In conclusion of the 2016 lawsuit, Superior Court Judge Bill Stokes orders Confalone to return the resort to the condition it was in when he bought it in 1995. Stokes also finds that Confalone;s company illegally harvested timber from the property in 2010 and 2011 to pay interest on a $6.35 million loan and orders Confalone to pay $136,000 in damages to the state. Attorney Severin Beliveau, representing the county commissioners, tells the Bangor Daily News there is a potential developer interested in reviving the ski area as a tourist destination.