I live in Tahoe Donner in the snowbowl condos. When we had our annual homeowners meeting, we had a representative from TD come and speak. He talked about the financial aspects of TD and the Ski Area is the major money makers for the Association. He mentioned the planned expansion for the Ski area lodge that is long over due. Literally the ski area has not been updated since 1974 when it was built, yet it is a money maker. However they have spent millions on other amenities that create little value for the homeowners. For instance, Pizza on the Hill. I went there a few weeks ago and they are only open from 5 to 8:30 and the place was empty. Empty during the summer high season when there are 6000 houses in TD and you would think this place would be packed?! At 6pm I was the only one in there. It was 93 degrees outside and only the doors on the other side of the room were open, all the windows on the side of the building were closed, no air circulation. They only serve beer and wine and the beer was not as cold as you would expect and served in plastic cups. You would think that they would have figured out how to serve cold beer in chilled glasses. The chicken wings were the toughest I have ever had. I could not get out of there fast enough. Originally I was going to have dinner, but as bad as the chicken wings were I was not going to stick around. How many hundreds of thousands of dollars have been flushed down the drain on this place. With the offices of the GM of TD being one flight of stairs above this business, you would think some attention would be given to the operations. However, this would require them coming out of their 70 degree offices which apparently would require too much effort. Getting back to the representative from the TD association in our annual meeting. He said they are looking into replacing one of the chairlifts. The chairlift in question is the original charilift from 1974 and the company that built the chairlift is out of business. When replacement parts are needed, they have to be manually fabricated since replacement parts no longer exist. He said a new charilift will cost around a million dollars. So we have pizza on the hill that is failing, yet the ski area that is a money maker is a relic from 1974. Why is all the attention of the TD association put into amenities that create little value, when the money maker, the ski area, is neglected? You would think the money would be spent on the money maker and with the profit from the money maker then and then only would you start investing in other interests. Think about this every year when you have to pay to subsidize the TD association for their obtuse views. read more
