Centennial Kart Track in Colorado Reopening

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“”The Airport Authority is seeking a skilled individual or entity to enter into a long-term lease for the land and improvements. The selected individual or entity will resume operations on the karting track and construct improvements to return the karting track to a first-class facility. In exchange for an investment the Airport Authority is planning on entering a long-term lease with the successful proposer.
As part of the development for such improvements upon the site, utilities (such as: water, sewer, power, phone/data) will need to be brought to the site. The nearest utilities mains run along S. Potomac Street. The cost for such utilities to the site will be the responsibility of lessee.”

“ Based on the Airport Authority’s initial analysis a 30 to 40 year term should be sufficient based on the level of investment the parcel requires.”

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Couldn’t disagree more. If I’m putting together an investor group and securing funding to do this properly (half a million up front at the bare minimum) there is no way I’d have any interest in doing so without a long term land lease.

Obtaining mortgages and commercial loans on a land lease project is done easily - happens all the time. Many, if not most, outparcels in commercial/retail developments are land leases.

All a three year lease is getting the airport is shipping containers, generators and a lessee with little skin in the game. Not even worth wasting time reading RFP’s for that.

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Would you not move to a much more lucrative opportunity with your $500k+ though? I need help understanding the upside for the “operator” and investor(s) in this deal. I’m not seeing the potential ROI.

I think I’d judge that on the merits of each proposal vs just the length of term. Like I said, I understand the rationale behind the 30 year… I just don’t understand what the attraction to a would-be investor is. A good five year plan with option to extend seems pretty attainable. 30 years is like me asking for an F1 drive.

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For me it would be attractive because the ground work is mostly done. A huge portion of cost outdoors is creating the track itself, the car park and hard standings for pit garages and clubhouse. That’s all done. Only pain in ass is running city services in but it’s not a deal breaker.

If I were nervous of being booted out then prefab buildings is the way to go, I get booted out as a lessee I take them with me to a new site.

  • Negotiate a % revenue lease deal rather than a fixed figure, insert a cap. Win-win.
  • Financing new Sodi fleet and multi sector timing system / management software through French sovereign bank with a 25% local investor(s) contribution for equity.
  • Sodi pro kart training facility and dealership
  • SWS
  • Motorsport cafe / bar, hard rock kind of vib

Winter does require some serious thought, snow karting is obviously a great idea but snow cannons joking aside isn’t you’ll never recoup the power and water costs. You can get the airport to stockpile their cleared snow with you to extend your snow days but it’s still gonna be iffy. Joe average tends to not want to drive outside when the temp drops really below +10-12, especially with 2 indoor options open in the city.

With the market numbers it ought to work and work well. 30-40 year lease they’re looking for it to be a family business, dad sets it up and runs with it a while then hands the reigns to son or daughter after they finish college. Something like.

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You’d be surprised how many people would be willing to put some warm clothes on to drive on snow/ice. Especially in a place that’s typically cold anyway. Snow\ice karting is pretty unique and attractive to people. The ROI on it would need to be worked out of course, but I wouldn’t write off the demand for it at the outset. I’d at least throw some money at research to validate it rule it in or out.

The cleared snow likely won’t be very usable, mixed with salt and/or sand.

How could you hedge the bet that the son\daughter will take it over and\or be competent?

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Not on an airport. :wink:

Yeah snow and ice karting I wasn’t counting when I say folks tend to not want to drive. Just cold days without snow

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Oh, yeah that’s a hard pass for most sensible people.

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Nope - there is no reason that a facility with the Denver demographics can’t be a profitable center if run properly. There are good models of karting facilities out there that show that well - Trackhouse, SpeedSports, New Castle, Orlando, Homestead, DKC.

The problem isn’t that a karting facility is a bad investment, it’s just that most facilities are run either as hobbies, clubs or poorly executed add ons to larger facilities.

If I was younger, I’d be all over this opportunity.i also think there is a case to be made for investment in to MRP in South Bend for the right group. The karting business is good - it takes a long term commitment though, not just dipping toes in the water.

Do it all, do it right and do it all right now.

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I think we’re having two discussions. One about karting facilities in general and one about this opportunity. Of course there’s overlap too…. But most of my argument is about this particular opportunity.

There’s very little that translates from those outliers to this situation though, other than proximity to people. I’m having a hard job understanding how their success might apply here.

I don’t think any of them share a property line with an airport nor do they have to be concerned with the FAA slowing down and/or halting developments that would be key to any kind of sustainability. One or two might be close to an airport, but I don’t think they have any influence?

DKC, NCMP started from bare land with a decent amount to expand too. That’s not an option here.

Having operated a track near an airport in the past… (albeit not in US) let’s say I’m especially bearish. Expansion and improvements were delayed for years and I can assure you it was not being run as a hobby business either. Capital sat waiting while the business waited on airport board to push paper.

There’s clearly an appetite for another karting facility near Denver… I’m not convinced that investors wouldn’t be better off starting from scratch though. Hopefully anyone considering this is thinking along the lines of building a world class facility… that could be anywhere near Denver…. Vs being hyper fixated on making that particular one work.

“Doing it right” means doing due diligence, this might be an amazing opportunity… but it’s not looking like that at the outset.

I’m not saying a karting facility is a bad investment perse, it would be a little hypocritical of me to say that given ive been looking for land and almost bought a track in the last year

BUT, there are serious challenges that would be amplified in this scenario. It’s a tough business as it is…. Would this facility be giving one a head start in the long term?

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It seems to me there was a time when MRP was one of the premier karting venues/orgs in the country. Not sure where it went off the rails.

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What has happened to IMI?

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I’m not sure, as I’m not in the area at this time. But what I do think has happened is it’s going to be for sale soon, the land is just too valuable. When I left about a year ago the management was changing and some felt for the better.

I don’t have anything positive to say about IMI in general but it is still there to my knowledge.

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How does this normally work?

Do you build a facility from ground up? Say you look at supercharged… that’s a big facility that is part of an even larger facility (parachuting/driving range/other).

It seems to me that this huge project must have had state involved somehow as it occupies a large swath of land off of a main road in a city area.

If I had to guess I’d say the karting building/operations alone is a 10M-25M spend.

How do the maths work on this (I’m not an entrepreneur so no clue? How many years to break even?

Are karting facilities, once successful, evergreen?

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I think the answer on this varies wildly.

The track at Centennial (that was the name of it when it was created) was I think opened originally in 05 by a guy named Jim Keasling. Hosted the US Rotax Max finals in 07 then mostly was a solid regional track until closure in 2016. I forget what the reason was but I think a combination of factors.

The land the track is built on is a really strange use case, which I think insulated the facility from other uses (hence an opportunity) but also of course contributes to the challenges of moving forward with another venture there.

Other tracks in the region have been part of a larger facility, but even that hasn’t guaranteed ultimate longevity.

BE point is tricky. I don’t have the books from the last 2 ventures there but I presume at least the most recent one never quite broke even despite 2 years of truly commendable effort, and got to an untenable point the last year for factors out of their control. As that got closer, looking back as an attendee I now can see cues that should’ve indicated the struggles. The management of the track was competent and dedicated, but hampered by being part of a larger organization that had other business ventures that diverted their time and energy.

I think you can make a kart track viable long term but it really depends on the details. To me I would imagine that an internal building / indoor facility is more likely to be ‘evergreen’ but that is probably just my ignorance to those types of facilities.

The factor that is really unpredictable about the location of this track is local engagement. A go kart track is not a destination attraction for most people nationwide, so you’re looking at your regional and local population as being your main source of activated and (hopefully) recurring customers. The numbers of people are there, and the regional corporate centers are there. Coloradans are adventurous, like to spend time together, etc….but the region has an interesting relationship with motorsports, be it recreational or as rentals. It makes me a bit skeptical.

If the group that I know of that is really trying to get this with an RFP moves forward, they’ll have a chance at lowering investment costs by hiding it in friends businesses. Read as Paul leads the business, uses his friend Fred for contract work and Peter who does other contract work for lower costs. Nothing wrong with that. You hear these stories a lot when it comes to kart tracks across the countries. So yeah, it’ll be expensive, but one plus is the costs from a facilities stand point are relatively known and defined by anyone that wants to take it on, and none of it is (theoretically) without a somewhat solid dollar amount that’s calculable ahead of hand. The unnerving X factor is the Jet Center and their seemingly arbitrary ‘gotchas’ about the land in the past that either were not understood or not disclosed to the track operators as time went on. Having the track where it is often feels like racing in the most draconian HOA run by the FAA….but I digress.

I don’t think any karting facility is truly evergreen. Local harassment, random government over sight, and politics in the karting community can all really affect your track if not managed carefully. From being around the sport for years it seems like most tracks are constantly struggling to stay viable in some respect even when they seem to be doing well.

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I recall hearing many years ago that airports are unique in that they have a network of steam pipes under the runways to prevent snow and ice build up.

Is this why you say there won’t be salt or sand mixed in with the plowed snow?

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Some airports do heat the ground but really only the parking stands, not many though. I’ve only ever seen that at Oslo.

No, salt / sand etc is INCREDIBLY bad for aircraft structures and moving parts, landing gear seals etc. No airports use it, it’s just not permitted. There was a spell back in the early 00s where some were using urea which ended up wreaking havoc with carbon brake packs so it was soon outlawed also. And it stank like ammonia :nauseated_face:

Essentially airports just clear the fresh snow by ploughing and huge roller brushes but that’s really it. Places like Frankfurt load up hundreds of thousands of lbs of fresh snow into big ass tipper lorries and dump it off site somewhere every winter.

Except for de-icing areas where you end up with glycol slushies, snow ploughed at an airport is pretty pure.

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Compared to what is considered a major national track now, it had some challenges. Small and largely unimproved paddock area, smaller track, tricky ingress/egress for the larger rigs that the national karting paddock morphed in to, etc.

It also seemed when MRP (the Birel importer/race team portion of the business) slowed down that there was also some reduction in staffing and what not that made preparing for and hosting the big events trickier.

All that said, it should still be a fantastic regional series track with the occasional visit by a National event. Route 66, CKNA, etc should have killer events there. And with some work like Gary and staff used to put in, the club racing should bounce back - an hour from Chicago lines, ninety minutes to city center. That’s a big population to work from.

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I think the MRP track layout races very well, shame it is basically idle.

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I swear I saw an announcement recently that the track has new management. Thought it was on EKN but I can’t find it, at least not from my phone.

Did I imagine this?

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You weren’t imagining things. I saw the announcement on Kart Chaser’s Facebook page, the Centennial track has new management and plans to reopen.

Colorado is really fortunate they’ll have a good kart facility to go to again. If it didn’t happen, I don’t know how likely a new kart track would have been built anywhere remotely near Denver.

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