The tiny town of Nederland has received $830,000 in bills so far as it seeks to purchase Eldora Mountain Resort, the ski area 5 miles from Town Hall.
The deal, which a contract originally specified should have closed by the end of this past April, has yet to reach the finish line.
Public records obtained by BusinessDen detail the outside firms the town has hired, some to the tune of $800 an hour, in connection with the purchase. But Town Manager Jonathan Cain said it will “soon,” without specifying further.
“The transaction has taken longer than originally anticipated because of the complexity of the acquisition,” he said in an email.
Eldora is owned by Utah-based Powdr Corp. The company announced in 2024 that it wanted to sell Eldora and two other U.S. ski areas.
In July 2025, Nederland — which has about 1,500 residents — announced that it had signed a letter of intent to buy the ski area. On Jan. 6 this year, the town’s board of trustees signed off on the purchase with a $120 million price tag. That works out to about $80,000 per resident.
The contract called for the deal to close by April 30, shortly after a dismal ski season. That date came and went.
“The Town is still working through details of the Eldora transaction,” the town said in a statement May 1. It has not provided an update on its website since.
Nederland has said it will finance the purchase through revenue bonds, which will be repaid from the ski area’s operating revenue, according to the memorandum. Cain said the bond process is “ongoing.”
Nederland refused to provide the bonds’ official statement, which is provided to potential buyers and typically details the terms of the bond and the issuer’s financial condition. Such documents are typically public and published online, but the town denied BusinessDen’s public records request.
The town did provide a list of bills as of June 16 and contracts with firms working on the acquisition.
The $830,000 comes in the form of “reimbursable expenses,” apparently set to be paid back when the bonds are purchased.
“Some contracts are contingent on successful closing of the transaction, while others will need to be paid regardless of closing,” Cain said.
Sno-Engineering Inc./SE Group, a resort planning firm, has billed $134,000. Widner Juran, a Centennial law firm working on the effort, has billed at least $260,000, records show.
That’s not the only law firm that Nederland has hired. The town has also contracted with Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck (up to $800 an hour), Dickinson Wright ($385 an hour), Butler Snow (estimated fee of $100,000), Kline Alvarado Veio (estimated fee of $200,000 to $250,000) and Taft (estimated fee of $200,000 to $225,000).
The largest single line item among the expenses is listed as being owed to Powdr Corp. — $124,000 on Jan. 27 of this year. There’s an additional $50,000 for the company listed on Jan. 6, the day the town approved the contract.
A letter from Powdr to Nederland that day states that Nederland is responsible for negotiating its own agreement if it wants to stay on the multimountain Ikon Pass offered by Denver-based Alterra Mountain Co. The letter states that Nederland must pay for 50% of costs that Powdr incurs in connection with that and put up $50,000 as an advance payment.
Other firms working on the acquisition include Fidelity Management & Research Co., insurance underwriter Euclid Transactional, BBA Water Consultants, Causey Public Finance, Farnsworth Group, RBC Capital Markets, investment bank Stifel, JPMorgan, Northland Securities, accounting firm Plante Moran and Datasite.
