MOUNT KONOCTI GONDOLA SKYRIDE PROJECT SUMMARY
1. The Total Investment is $15,000,000.
| |
Gondola |
$ 6,000,000 |
| Land Acquisition |
$ 4,000,000 |
| Base & Summit Facilities |
$ 3,400,000 |
| 1st Year Permit Process |
$ 600,000 |
| Contingencies/Working Capital |
$ 1,000,000
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|
$15,000,000 |
2. The Investor(s) Rate of Return is 43% per year.
3. The Payback of the Initial Investment occurs in just over 4 years. The total payback for Investor(s) is $126,726,661 over 10 years (including the value of the company at the end of 10 years).
4. The Opening Date is March 1, 2007.
5. The project includes the acquisition of one of several alternative base sites, either within the Black Forest, or adjacent to the Konocti Harbor Inn.
6. Although the analysis shows an initial "season" of 8 months, the Mount Konocti Gondola Skyride may operate 10-12 months, due to significant bookings of major performance groups at the Konocti Harbor Inn, and to the opening of new hotels and casinos.
7. The core Marketing Program will be "piggy backed" with the Konocti Harbor Inn, the El-Em Hotel & Casino, the Konocti Vista Hotel & Casino, and with other area tourist events, and proposed casinos and resort hotels, employing Radio, Newspapers, Brochures, and 800-Number service (800-GONDOLA). Brad Dennett is one of the top internet-licensed technicians in the country, and he will assist with the development of www.GondolaSkyride.com and other "internet" properties (www.MountKonoctiGondolaSkyride.com, www.MKGS.com, and www.ItsDifferentUpHere.com).
8. The Konocti Harbor Inn is now the #1 Small Community Venue for touring entertainers, including Ringo Starr, Bill Cosby, Tom Jones, Willie Nelson, Creedence Clearwater, Wynonna Judd, Leann Rimes, The Beach Boys, Olivia Newton-John, and dozens of others.
9. Over 250,000 patrons annually attend events offered by the Konocti Harbor Inn.
10. An additional 100,000 tourists visit Clear Lake State Park, which abuts the project.
11. Four major combination Hotel/Casino/RV Park/Marina/Golf Course projects are being developed. The new Konocti Vista Hotel & Casino attracts 3,000 to 5,000 visitors each day, or up to 1,000,000 visitors per year! The El-Em Hotel & Casino will doubtless support similar numbers.
12. The current market of 500,000 visitors is just 10% of the 5 million visitors who annually pass through the adjacent Napa Valley.
13. The Breakeven Point is only 142,000 passengers.
14. To our knowledge, no similar gondola project has ever failed, anywhere in the world.
15. The average attendance, after 10 years, at Sterling Vineyards, Queenstown, Banff, and Palm Springs (the 4 most similar ventures) exceeds 600,000 in each location.
16. If the number of visitors reaches 600,000 after 10 years, as projected in our analysis, the projected Market Value, measured as 10 times the then projected earnings for the 11th year, is $148,551,964 which is twenty times the Initial Investment!
17. Within 10 years, 100 people will be employed directly by the Mount Konocti Gondola Skyride.
18. Cash Flow exceeds $12,000,000 (the Initial Investment) annually within 10 years!
19. This project will impact the overall economy of Lake County by more than $100,000,000 annually, within 10 years.
20. Lake County is 1/4 of the Wine Country (Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino, and Lake Counties). It is the last "corner" of the Wine Country to be developed. Vineyards are flourishing, with most major Napa Valley wineries investing in Lake County land at this time. There will be substantial opportunities to "reinvest" the profits into hotels, wineries, and other tourist projects throughout the Wine Country.
21. The land now available to MKGS includes over 1,000 acres and BOTH peaks of Mount Konocti. Future projects might include a 350-person Amphitheater, an Audubon Society-sponsored view area, walks to Clear Lake State Park and to Kelseyville, and numerous picnic and lookout areas. Additionally, we hope to locate a museum, dedicated to the celebration of Pomo and other Native American cultures, within the main building. A number of 10 to 20 acre “estate” home sites could be developed on the south side of the mountain.
22. Similar gondola "theme park" areas all over the world have demonstrated their unlimited lifespan, and product stability not imaginable among "high tech" investment alternatives with comparable rates of return. This project will continue to attract millions of tourists for hundreds of years! Sterling, Queenstown, Banff and Palm Springs have each attracted over 10 million tourists so far!
23. It is important to understand this project not only from a demographic perspective, but also from a geographic and historical perspective. Believe it or not, until the 1950s, the road around Lake Tahoe was not entirely paved! At that time, casinos were just beginning to get established, and they looked more like motels than resorts. In fact, Lake Tahoe in the 1950s looked very much like Lake County today. Bob Wood, who co-founded the Heavenly Valley Tramway, reported that it took him 10 years to get support and financing to build what is now an American landmark.
24. Another California location that is so well developed today that no one remembers when it was the "poor sister" is Palm Springs! Although some movie stars and movie moguls were visiting there 50 years ago, the community in general was so poor as recently as the 1950s that, in order to build the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, the developers had to borrow via a State of California sponsored charitable bond.
25. Even America's #1 tourist "area", the Napa Valley, which draws 5 million visitors annually, was "dirt poor" as recently as the 1970s. During the 1970s, Bank of America foreclosed loan after loan in the Napa Valley. Then, in 1979, came the enormously popular TV show Falcon Crest. 10 years after Falcon Crest, ordinary older homes in Saint Helena had risen from $25,000 each to $250,000 each. The gondola at Sterling Vineyards played a part in the surge of the Napa Valley, as it did in Lake Tahoe and in Palm Springs. The gondola at Sterling Vineyards is now 25 years old, and remains the #1 tourist attraction in the Napa Valley, with over 600,000 patrons annually! Note that in Heavenly Valley, in Palm Springs, and in the Napa Valley, the event that was there when the area "took off" was the gondola ropeway. Note that in each case, even today, the Heavenly Valley Tram, the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, and the Sterling Gondola are by wide and far the #1 tourist attractions in each of their respective areas! Each attracts over 600,000 visitors annually. In each area, no other attraction draws more than 100,000 visitors!
26. 40 years ago, few people had visited Queenstown, New Zealand. Today, Queenstown is not only the #1 tourist area in New Zealand, with over 1 million visitors annually, over half of whom ride the Skyline Gondola, but Queenstown has also risen to become one of the 3 most popular tourist destinations in the world, according to Conde Naste magazine. The histories of dozens of the world's most famous tourist areas are linked to the development of an aerial ropeway. In North America, Aspen, Steamboat Springs, and Banff, owe their popularity to the views commanded from their respective gondolas...Lake County is awaiting its turn!
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