So that’s it. We are all Vialiens now. The three-year drama over the PCMR lease is over. It’s hard to know how to feel about it. Personally, I always thought having three independent resorts in town was good for the community, and good for the employees. If somebody wants to have a career in the ski industry, having the ability to move to another resort when an opportunity for advancement opens up has been important. All three have been generous to the community in a lot of ways. I don’t know that the generosity will be reduced by a third when the integration of Canyons and PCMR is complete, but I do know that decisions that used to be made locally with a single phone call now have to go through some corporate process in Colorado.

On the other hand, the uncertainty created by PCMR’s squatter status has made capital improvements impossible. Maybe we will see upgrades of the Motherlode and Pioneer lifts, which are true relics. Thaynes and Jupiter are antiques, as well, but are short rides on terrain that is challenging enough that I kind of like the rest on the way up. They need additional restaurant space on the mountain. Now that Vail owns it, and isn’t nervously expecting the Sheriff to start hauling their stuff out to the curb, there’s at least hope that those upgrades can happen. They need to happen soon to keep PCMR competitive.

The published purchase price was $182 million for the base, parking lots, water rights, trademarks and everything else down to the hotdog buns in the freezer. That sounds pretty close to a full market price for it. But I’ve got to hand it to John Cumming. Having fallen head first into a pile of, um, let’s call it muck, he is coming out of it smelling like a rose. Within the last month, Vail had been claiming that they had been damaged to the tune of $125 million by PCMR’s squatting. So that swung from $125 in Vail’s favor to $182 million in PCMR’s. Not too shabby.

It’s not the same as getting the Supreme Court to reinstate the lease (but everybody knew that wasn’t going to happen), but to be able to turn the world’s most jaw-dropping business screw-up into a market-price sale, $182 million in cash to the plus side, isn’t a bad piece of work. You can’t always get what you want, but as they say, you get what you need.

None of the announcements so far have said what happens to the current employees of PCMR. Given the animosity, there can’t be a high level of confidence that they will be there long-term. But we are very late in the season, and running a ski resort is a complicated process. There are a million little quirks that only somebody with hands-on experience will know. Sixty days from opening is not the time to be making changes. So we can only hope that this year, the mountain will be operated by the same people who have run it for years. Next year, as the two operations begin to get combined, who knows.

The settlement removes the cloud that has hung over all kinds of decisions for the last three years. Business owners at the resort base can safely re-invest. The retail at the resort plaza area is frankly looking a little shabby these days. But you can’t blame a shop owner for not putting a lot into freshening things up with the potential shut-down looming. This year, things were so uncertain that I don’t know how anybody knew what inventory to order. Retail is tough enough, then you add in the weather variable and it gets really challenging. Then throw the potential for the resort to be closed into the mix, and you wonder how they find the courage to turn the lights on in the morning.

Property managers and owners of nightly rental condos have had the same anxiety. Do you remodel a 25-year old condo if the resort might not open? So with the certainty that comes from the settlement and purchase, there is good reason for reinvesting and updating. It’s time to put away the duct tape and start a real revival. That’s good for businesses, contractors, and visitors.

As a community, we owe a lot to Judge Ryan Harris. He is a smart, thorough judge who recognized from the beginning that this case was not just a business dispute. The public was not formally represented in the suit. The City didn’t intervene or file amicus briefs on the importance of the issues to the community as a whole. They didn’t need to. The judge was looking out for us.

Tom Clyde practiced law in Park City for many years. He lives on a working ranch in Woodland and has been writing this column since 1986.