Nonprofit to raise funds for bid to buy Greenville ski area

A nonprofit that has been running Big Moose Mountain ski area for more than a decade is making the move to buy the property outright.

Friends of the Mountain has been operating the ski area, just outside Greenville, near the shore of Moosehead Lake, since 2013, under a licensing agreement with the property’s owner, James Confalone.

Now, the organization has announced it is partnering with the Moosehead Lake Region Economic Development Corp. to start a fundraiser on Jan. 18, 2025. 

The goal of the year-long fundraiser is to collect enough money to buy the property, more than 1,200 acres, at its asking price of $5.95 million.  

“We believe placing Big Moose in community hands will boost economic activity for current businesses and attract new businesses to the region,” Margarita Contreni, the economic development corporation board’s president, said in a joint statement announcing the new campaign.

The property has been overshadowed by controversy ever since the Maine Attorney General’s office sued the property’s owner, James Confalone, in 2016 alleging mismanagement of the ski area and surrounding property. A Maine Superior Court Judge ruled against Confalone back in 2020, and over the summer this year Confalone lost his appeal.

Meanwhile, other attempts have come and gone to purchase the property and renovate it, including an ambitious $135 million resort and marina project that was shelved when investors pulled the plug in 2022.

Amy Lane, president of Friends of the Mountain, said her organization made the move to organize the campaign after the most recent attempt to buy the property fell through in September of this year. 

“Now that the months have passed, there’s a real initiative locally to just solve this conundrum of sorts, and let’s take over the ownership,” she said.

Lane said Friends of the Mountain have invested more than $1 million over the years in repairs and upkeep, with the lower half of the mountain fully operational.

The chair lift to the upper half of the mountain needs to be replaced, but Lane said upper-mountain trails are still open.

“There’s probably people up there hiking it right now, regardless of there being a summit lift,” Lane said Friday afternoon. 

Lane said her organization recognizes that a new chair lift, which could cost more than $2 million, would be ideal. Once she raises the funding to buy the property, she said she intends to embark on future campaigns to fund a new chair lift.

Lane added that expanding the ski area is not out of the question, though an endeavor as large as the project proposed back in 2022 probably won’t happen.

The new campaign – Ski the View, Save the Mountain – officially begins on Jan. 18, 2025.