D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
March 2010
Business Beat
Bear Mountain Lodge update, bankruptcies, cable news and more.
Put Up a "Sold" Sign?
Has Bear Mountain Lodge near Silver City been sold? That was the news would-be local buyers got in February: They'd been outbid by buyers from New York state, who planned to operate the lodge as a bed-and-breakfast. But Aaron Drew, a spokesperson for The Nature Conservancy, which owns the lodge, says, "The Nature Conservancy listed the property with a local real estate agent [Nancy Kelleher at United Country Mimbres Realty] in January. We do not have an agreement to sell the property at this time."
The Nature Conservancy shuttered the lodge and put the property on the block last fall, anticipating the clock running out on a commitment to run the lodge for a minimum of 10 years (see "Editor's Notebook," November 2009). Originally built as the Rocky Mountain Ranch School for Boys in 1928 by longtime Silver City resident Juanita Franks, the lodge and surrounding acreage was donated to the nonprofit Conservancy upon the death of Myra McCormick in 1999. She and her husband had operated it as the Bear Mountain Guest Ranch for more than four decades. The Nature Conservancy remodeled the lodge and reopened it in 2001.
In an email to Conservancy members last fall, state director Terry Sullivan blamed the sale on tough economic times and stated that running a nature-lodging facility "is simply not core to our mission and was a net drain on our resources."
Whoever buys the property will, however, have to live with strict covenants, including an annual inspection to make sure they're meeting the Conservancy's standards. Some of those regulations seem a bit odd: Llamas are OK on the land, for example, but not chickens. A garden to grow produce for the lodge's restaurant can't be planted in what would seem an ideal location.
It also turns out the Nature Conservancy decided to sell Bear Mountain Lodge back in August 2009, a couple of months before closing the lodge in October (just in time to throw a wrench into lodging for Silver City's annual Weekend at the Galleries). Efforts by local buyers to persuade the Conservancy to keep the lodge open while negotiating a sale were rebuffed.
Now, after several months sitting empty, Bear Mountain Lodge is starting to show signs of its abandonment. With this winter's frequently muddy weather, however, at least one local business is benefiting: Calls to rescue drivers from the turnaround at the lodge's gate are keeping tow trucks hopping.
As this issue went to press, given the uncertainty about the pending sale, local buyers were presenting an updated bid in hopes of being able to own Bear Mountain Lodge after all.
You Read It Here First
As first reported in this space last month, the Silver City Daily Press has indeed sold its building at 300 W. Market St. to Colorado transplants Dave and Wendy Phillips. For now, the locally owned daily newspaper will be headquartered in rented quarters at 3130A Hwy. 180E. In a statement, owner Tina Ely explained that the real-estate sale was necessary to buy out her brothers, Clyde Ely and Wes Lorier, who were minority stockholders, after the 2006 death of their mother, Betty Ely. The sale allowed the estate to be cleared and means that Tina Ely now owns 100% of the newspaper company. "There will be no more out-of-town owners," she said.
As also first noted here last issue, the nationwide bankruptcy of the Movie Gallery video-rental chain has indeed taken a toll in our area, with the Las Cruces location at 5702 Bataan Memorial East among about 760 Movie Gallery stores set for closing. A half-dozen of the chain's Hollywood Video outlets in the Albuquerque area are also slated to shut down. Movie Gallery stores in Silver City, Deming and T or C were spared the ax and are remaining open.
Coming and Going
But maybe that empty Movie Gallery won't stay that way for long: Look at what happened to the old Blockbuster location at 1440 Missouri Ave. in Las Cruces, which is now home to a new 99 Cent Store & More, an offshoot of sorts of the bargain store by the same name on North Main.
Amy M. Lam checks in to report that Fudge Happy, gourmet fudge that is locally handcrafted by a registered nurse and fine artist, is now available at Solamente de Mesilla on the plaza in Old Mesilla, as well as at Toucan Market and Mountain View Market. Choose from 10 flavors made in small batches using non-fat, low-fat, reduced-fat and all-natural ingredients whenever possible, ranging from chile and pecan to coffee and cream.
In less happy Mesilla news, the Purple Lizard boutique on Calle de Parian has closed its doors after 28 years.
Silver City's GRIP Optical has moved down 12th Street to 212 E. 12th St., former HQ of Hometown Mortgage. 534-2020.
A Sea of Red
Speaking of bankruptcies, as we were a few paragraphs back, it's not clear what if any impact the filing by MediaNews Group will have on the Silver City and Las Cruces Sun-News, which the company owns in a joint venture with Gannett. One thing's for sure, however: MediaNews mogul Dean Singleton won't lose a dime of his own dough in the bankruptcy, nor will his longtime partner Richard B. Scudder. Both will say goodbye, though, to paper profits that once reached as high as $500 million each. But the only equity investor to actually lose money in MediaNews is the Hearst Corp.; even though it competes with MediaNews in northern California, Hearst invested in the company and now stands to lose a whopping $317 million from the Chapter 11 filing of MediaNews' parent, Affiliated Media. In announcing the bankruptcy, MediaNews tried to distance itself from the $930 million mountain of debt, saying operations at its newspapers wouldn't be affected. Industry experts, however, say MediaNews and Affiliated Media "appear to be essentially one and the same company."
Meanwhile, the other co-owner of the Sun-News (as well as the Deming Headlight) isn't faring much better: Gannett reported sales of $5.6 billion for 2009, down 30% from just three years prior. Operating profits plunged 51.6% to $1.1 billion.
The Cable Guys
It's only a matter of time before Las Cruces customers of Comcast cable will need to get set-top boxes, even if they own a "cable-ready" TV. As the company transitions to an encrypted digital signal, Albuquerque customers will be the first to be affected, with Santa Fe and Las Cruces next. The first three set-top boxes per household will be free, according to Comcast. Only customers with a single TV attached to a TiVo or Comcast digital video recorder won't need an extra box; those DVRs already have the encryption capability built in or added via a card.
Meanwhile, Silver City Comcast customers who are just hoping to get high-definition (HD) signals on local (that is, Albuquerque) network channels will have to wait awhile longer — perhaps quite awhile. Right now, that fancy new flat panel TV you got for Christmas is limited to 21 cable channels such as Food, HGTV, Travel, Syfy, Lifetime and premium services HBO and Starz. Getting CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox in all their HD glory may happen yet this year, according to Comcast, but could lag until 2011. Until then, Silver City videophiles wishing to watch "American Idol" or "CSI:" in HD will need a satellite dish.
Or maybe soon you can just watch over the Internet. Rural computer owners longing for broadband access got good news from the USDA's Rural Development fund, which announced $11.5 million in funding to Cliff-based Western New Mexico Telephone Co. The money — part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) federal stimulus — will help provide "last mile" high-speed Internet access to remote and underserved customers in the company's service area.
Beam Us Up!
At least the National Geographic Channel is on that HD lineup, so we can watch the upcoming four-part documentary on Virgin Galactic. The documentary will reportedly span two years and follow owner Richard Branson and his engineers and pilots as they labor to launch rich tourists into near-space at $200,000 a pop, first at Mojave, Calif., and ultimately at our own Spaceport America. It's not clear from the production schedule announced by UK-based Darlow Smithson Productions, which is lensing (as they say in Daily Variety) the documentary, whether the filmmakers will follow Virgin Galactic's inaugural spaceflight efforts all the way to New Mexico.
Names You Know
Over in Anthony, Yvonne Golston's Border Circuit Polo School (see the May 2009 Desert Exposure has been approved for Polo Development Initiative funding from the US Polo Association, to help build the sport in this area.
A familiar name to those at the Tyrone mine is back in the business news: Timothy R. Snider, former president of the mine and president and COO of mine owner Phelps Dodge and its successor, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, is launching a new company. Snider will head up Cupric Canyon Capital LLC, which will search for "overlooked" deposits of copper. He'll be joined by other Phelps Dodge alumni, including M. Stephen Enders and Dennis Bartlett. Although some experts note rising copper supplies and warn the metal's price might hit a ceiling, Barclays Capital predicts the average price will soar 34% in 2010.