"Entertainment City" at old Concord Stalled?

An article in today's Times Herald Record, "Cappelli's $1B Sullivan resort plan could be a long shot" kinda confirms what I've been saying for months — that despite all the bravado about breaking ground and getting construction underway, the funding isn't there. And in this tight commercial lending environment, where platinum projects like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and the City Center project in Las Vegas are stalled or have been scaled back, the funding for Entertainment City isn't a sure bet.

Comments

[Westchester Friend]

I never understood why he even considered this to begin with.
He is known for erecting buildings and that's it...not designing, managing resorts.

$1 Billion? What was he thinking....."Build it and they will come"?
Villa Roma has tried to stay afloat for years and has always had trouble.

Fake casino and golf is not enough to attract people. How many patrons do you need to recup $1 Billion? It could take 50 years!

This will be known as Cappelli's biggest blunder ever. Unusual for a very smart family.

[Bix]

Hey, I know I'm a sentimentalist on this subject, so don't mind me, but at one point there were how many? 500? 600? hotels and resorts in Sullivan County at the height of the borscht belt. In today's dollars that would be many billions of dollars in value. Nothing has changed in the Catskills since then--same mountains, same lakes, almost no "suburbanization." If anything, the area is more rustic than it was in its heyday. In the tiny hamlet where my little piece of dirt is located, there used to be a half-dozen hotels and I'm far from the heart of the Borscht Belt.

So I can see how a major resort might thrive under the right circumstances (which may never come, of course).

That Monticello Raceway financial statement is definitely a disaster area, by the way. Bankruptcy is absolutely in the offing.

[David Knudsen]

Bix, the decline of the Catskills resorts can be laid at the feet of a single culprit: the jet plane. Jets made far off, exotic destinations accessible. And then after airline reregulation, cheap. The Borscht Belt never recovered.

I actually took some heart in the surge in gas prices in 2007/2008. Airfares skyrocketed. Suddenly, flying the family off to a weekend at Atlantis in the Bahamas wasn't quite so cheap anymore. Even tough it cost a king's ransom to fill the gas tank to make a trip up here, it was still a lot cheaper to drive the family to the Catskills than to fly the family to Cancun.

I think there is still an interesting future here. Cheap gas and cheap airfares are more short term recession anomalies. We'll likely see $5 gas and $500 round trip fares to Florida again in the next few years. If vacation patterns shift back to close-in, drive away vacations, Sullivan County is pretty well positioned. The Concord and Grossingers are ready and waiting for their makeovers. Tennanah Lake is a spectacular resort development opportunity. Other resort sites include a couple of beautiful large tracts in Forestburgh township, the campground on Swinging Bridge, the large Chapin parcel on the other side of the dam on Toronto Reservoir, and the large acreage parcel south of Chapin.

That kind of resort development is unlikely in the near term. But lifestyle patterns change. I expect that with green awareness and global warming, along with oil depletion, the far away fly away vacation — just like the McMansion in a distant suburb — will fall out of favor. And close in pampering may gain favor. Now, if we can just get a maglev train between NYC and Binghamton, with stops in Sullivan County, we'd be all set!

[Craig P]

Yea the jetliner changed the catskills in the 70's.

But the internet brought the catskills closer into people's family-rooms much like the TV brought the catskills into people's livingrooms in the 40's-60's
The internet helped drive prices so high as popularity grew in having a country place to show-off and entertain.
Also, the internet acted as an accelerated auction and allowed sellers and realtors to create baseline prices of worth and value.

The changed economy will certainly bring things back down to earth. Painfully, as buyers have less interest in owning dirt during these times, ANY Price might not be enough to create demand or genereate interest. That is why many realtors are not seeing activity and are bailing out of the career. 400 realtors for SC is too much. Even 40 realtors is too much!!

[Bix]

What you had through the sixties, in addition to cheaper air fares, were other favorable demographic conditions. Big ethnic neighborhoods where first and second generation immigrants liked to vacation with their own kind. There was also anti-Semitic discrimination at some resorts through the sixties. I remember as a kid visiting Williamsburg, Va., in 1964 and seeing brochures for hotels promising a "Christian atmosphere." (a shorthand for Jews not being allowed) That's the kind of thing that created the Borscht Belt.

I guess the bottom line is that the county is in a multi-decade period of economic stagnation, and has been since the last resorts closed. Still, given its proximity to New York, I would not be surprised if there is something of a resort revival, given the right conditions. But as I said in another thread, those kinds of things never seem to happen.

[David Knudsen]

Bix, the first paragraph of your comment raises a good point, and an opportunity for Sullivan County. This county has never been the vacation destination of well-heeled, Episcopalian white folk. Since the early 1900's, though, Sullivan has welcomed waves of first and second generation immigrant vacationers from NYC — German Catholics, Irish firemen and policemen (that's who Smallwood was originally marketed to) and Jews who weren't welcome at other resort areas (and if they were, the hotels and restaurants seldom offered dining and programs that catered to the observant.) There are new waves of similar groups in NYC — Latinos, eastern Europeans, southeast and south Asians, for example. Maybe Sullivan County needs to get back to its knitting, and think about increasing our appeal as a vacation destination to first and second generation immigrant communities.

[Nick]

Heh... that sounds familiar. ;-)