PRECISION FAREWELL: Keystone local closes up shop
Running a small business in a resort town isn’t easy. When your landlord limits the services you can offer your customers it tends to make things even harder.
When Jimbo Deines’s lease came up for renewal this last spring, he decided to add high-end equipment rentals to his famous ski tuning shop in the River Run Village at Keystone Resort to cover the increasing cost of operation. The only problem was that the owners of the River Run Village would not allow it.
“Under the terms of the new lease there was going to be a slight increase in the rent and we would have to stay open year-round,” says Deines, who has owned and operated the Precision Ski shop in the Keystone area since 1984. “Our annual sales at the River Run shop had been flat for two years and I saw an opportunity to add high-end rentals, but the mountain wouldn’t let me.”
According to Deines, who closed the doors of his shop for the last time a few months ago, he was not the only business owner in the River Run Village unhappy with mountain management.
“I can say this,” says Deines. “I’m probably not going to be the last person to leave River Run this summer. It’s a struggle out there, and there is a general feeling of discontent among business owners.”
By adding a new rental fleet, Deines shop would have become one of three businesses in the Keystone area to offer rental equipment. Christy Sports and Gorsuch Outfitters both offer the same services; however, Deines competition would have stemmed from Keystone Sports, a shop owned by Specialty Sports Venture. Specialty Sports is 50-percent owned by Vail Resorts and operates two other rental locations in Keystone—one at the base of the River Run Gondola, the other in the mountain house.
Five years ago when Precision Ski moved from their mountain house location to the River Run Village, they took on a new lease that excluded rentals. Deines said the move was prompted when the mountain decided they wanted to operate their own rental shop at the mountain house location. “I’m a bottom line company, just like the mountain,” says Deines. “I can’t have my expenses going up and my landlord limiting my ability to pay the increase. If the mountain can adapt and change with the industry, why can’t I?”
According to Amy Kemp, the Communications Manager for Vail Resorts, the mountain sees it as an unfortunate situation that the two parties could not come to terms on the renewal of Deines’ lease.
“We are definitely sad to see him go,” says Kemp. “He’s a legend around the area and we wanted him to stay and have a strong business. Our main goal in the River Run Village is to have a healthy mix of private and mountain-run businesses and we encourage our retailers to stay open year round.”
Although Deines has closed his Keystone doors, he is still operating his Frisco shop and has no plans to put down his tuning tools anytime soon.