Sunday River Resort Announces Capital Projects For 2020 In 10-Year Vision

One of New England’s largest ski areas has announced a plan to guide resort growth and development through the year 2030, focused on new infrastructure, enhanced experiences for year-round adventure, and reaching a net-zero carbon impact.  

Sunday River first developed a long-term growth plan in 2008 after joining the Boyne Resorts family of resorts and attractions, now the third-largest mountain resort company in North America. This initial envisioning process included multiple groups of stakeholders and created a set of experiential “zones” across the resort which guided decisions and investments. The 2030 vision builds on this foundation by establishing a set of five guiding principles, or pillars, to steer future development based on feedback and insights from season passholders, resort team members, and New England skiers.

The 2030 plan is broken into four phases—first steps, short-term, mid-term, and long-term. Initial projects that are already underway include:

Purchasing the Sunday River Golf Club. In 2019, Sunday River began managing operations of the Sunday River Golf Club. In order to make improvements and achieve growth, this month, the resort purchased the course and solidified the long-term future of one of the most spectacular mountain golf courses in New England. 

Acquiring unique ski-in/ski-out real estate on Merrill Hill. With the recent purchase of 450 acres of land adjacent to the South Ridge and Aurora Peak areas of the resort, Sunday River will be offering unparalleled mountaintop home sites with ski-in/ski-out access via a new chairlift, located in the heart of the resort. 

Adding Dual-Frequency Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) Technology for Chairlift Access. Sunday River will install dual-frequency RFID technology ahead of winter 2020-21 to offer direct-to-lift access for ticket and season pass holders. Once a guest has a Sunday River-enabled RFID card, they will be able to load lift tickets or their season pass product onto the card and head directly to the lift upon arrival. The dual-frequency technology was unveiled this winter as the first of its kind in the world for Sunday River’s sister resorts: Big Sky Resort in Montana and Loon Mountain Resort in New Hampshire. 

Renovating the Resort’s Largest Conference Space. Conferences and weddings have become of vital importance to Sunday River’s year-round sustainability as a business. As such, the resort will renovate the Grand Ballroom in the Grand Summit Hotel to not only improve the appearance of the space, but to incorporate new technologies for audio-visual services to provide an excellent guest experience.  

Installing an Observation Tower at the top of North Peak. A new observation tower will be built atop North Peak as phase one of enhancing year-round offerings at the resort. The tower will be accessible by the resort’s signature Chondola lift, which is open in the summer and fall for scenic lift rides.  

Projects included in the full ten-year plan include a significant number of upgraded chairlifts, continued extensive snowmaking upgrades, a hydro-therapy spa, a new SnowSports School building, new summer activities such as a mountain coaster, and more. For more details on the projects and initiatives within the Sunday River 2030 plan, visit 2030.sundayriver.com. 

“We are incredibly grateful for our guests, our team, and the Boyne Resorts family for helping to guide and determine our future,” says Resort President and General Manager, Dana Bullen. “The next decade will be one of the most transformational in our 60-year history, assuring that Sunday River will remain one of the top resorts in the Northeast. The 2030 vision will give us a clear path to success as a sustainable year-round destination.”