Steamboat Ski Resort announced Tuesday it plans to spend a record $16 million on capital improvements at the ski area for the 2007-2008 ski season.
They include the installation of a new Christie Peak Express high-speed six-passenger chairlift, enhancements to parking facilities, the removal of several chairlifts in the base area and snowmaking improvements. Intrawest Holdings bought Steamboat last month for $239.1 million.
Additional business news briefs:
VAIL
Town bidding to hold 2013 alpine ski contest
The Vail Valley Foundation confirmed Tuesday that it is officially bidding to bring the 2013 World Alpine Ski Championships to the Vail Valley.
The two-week event could attract to the area more than 800 athletes and 1,800 members of the international media. A decision will be made next May.
DULLES, Va.
Satellite co. contract has Thornton link
GeoEye, a Dulles-based geo spatial imagery company with operations in Thornton, announced it has won $23.9 million in awards to supply the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Department of Agriculture with satellite imagery and other products and services.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has committed to buying imagery from the company’s GeoEye-1 satellite that will be launched later this year. The USDA uses imagery to support its global commodity estimates and crop forecasts.
WASHINGTON
Pilots union weighing older retirement age
The Air Line Pilots Association’s executive board this month will consider a resolution to modify its policy on a federal rule that requires U.S. airline pilots to retire at age 60.
The Federal Aviation Administration plans to change the rule to allow those pilots to fly until age 65, with certain limitations.
The pilots union, which has historically opposed changing the rule, is surveying its members on the matter.
IRVINE, Calif.
Southwest bested by Orbitz in fare survey
Orbitz.com’s cheapest last minute fares averaged 8.5 percent less than comparable deals available through Southwest Airlines, according to a survey of ticket prices for 238 routes done by a University of California at Irvine economist.
Southwest does not allow its fares to be sold on Orbitz and other online travel sites. Southwest, whose own website accounts for most of its bookings, “exploits its low-cost reputation with last-minute travelers who feel they don’t have time to shop around,” according to UC Irvine economist Volodymyr Bilotkach.
HOLMDEL, N.J.
Vonage tries anew to toss patent verdict
Vonage Holdings Corp., an Internet telephone company, asked a federal appeals court to throw out a patent verdict it lost in March, based on a U.S. Supreme Court opinion issued Monday.
The company asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington to overturn a jury finding that Vonage infringed three Verizon Communications Inc. patents and send the case back to the trial court. The high court decision bolsters the argument that Verizon’s patents are invalid, Vonage said in court papers.
CHICAGO
Mortgage woes “100 percent predictable”
Billionaire real estate investor Sam Zell said the subprime mortgage crisis was fueled by an industry with lax standards.
“Subprime was toxic,” said Zell, 65, Tuesday at a panel discussion in Chicago with Barry Sternlicht, the chief executive officer of Starwood Capital Group LLC. “What did anyone expect?”
The collapse of subprime lenders amid rising borrower defaults was “so 100 percent predictable,” said Zell.
WASHINGTON
Big site in Congress: Google adds lobbyists
Google Inc. has lots of cash and coolness down in California’s Silicon Valley, but relatively little clout up on Capitol Hill.
Now, it’s hoping to build its congressional political muscle by pumping up its in-house lobbying staff and working with savvy outside lobbying firms. The search-engine company will move soon from a shared rental space to its own expansive digs in the nation’s capital.
NEW YORK
Blackstone, buyout star, will join NYSE
Blackstone Group LP, manager of the world’s second-largest buyout fund, plans to list its shares under the ticker symbol BX on the New York Stock Exchange.
The firm, founded in 1985 by bankers Stephen Schwarzman and Peter G. Peterson, said in March it would raise $4 billion by selling a minority stake in an initial public offering.
BUTTE, Mont.
Bernanke: Competing is U.S. economy’s key
A move to protect threatened American industries and workers from foreign competition would be a serious mistake that would jeopardize the sizable benefits of free trade, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday in remarks to an audience at Montana Tech in Butte, Mont.
