There was a public meeting for Sleeping Giant Resort held at the Cody Game and Fish offices north of town on Wednesday night and it was a packed house. Extra chairs were needed.
Nick Piazza, the current owner of Sleeping Giant Resort, started the presentation and explained to the audience that the resort has been closed since 2023 due to “a lack of snow” and that the main pipe that was used to make snow on the mountain had gone down.
Piazza had invested 2 million dollars to keep Sleeping Giant running in the three years it was in operation under his ownership.
Piazza has been looking for a buyer and there had been much interest with several bids put in, but the bid from HMH Capital Group stood out from the rest.
Brent Hargrove of HMH capital group of Dallas, TX was in attendance at the meeting Wednesday night and explained that HMH Capital Group had approached the U.S. Forest Service about purchasing Sleeping Giant, as the resort is on U.S. Forest Service land. No deals have been made at this time, and it is early in the process. The U.S. Forest service has to sign off on the purchase.
If the U.S. Forest Service does sign off on the deal, then the purchase of Sleeping Giant Resort would enter HMH Capital Group’s phase 1 of the purchase plan and that would be a period of 1 to 4 years with over 4 million dollars in investments. During this time the main focus of the investments by HMH Capital Group would be in Summer Activities at the resort which would include: A pre-existing zip line; tube slides; children’s playground; a hike and bike trail area; and a mid-mountain yurt. Skiing in the winter would also be one of the options with this initial investment. And Hargrove stated several times at the meeting that skiing “wouldn’t just go away”.
Hargrove also stated that HMH Capital Group is “looking to compliment and not compete with Cody”. Hargrove went on to say that HMH Capital would be looking to hire up to 40 full-time and part time employees with 5 full-time workers and 35 part-time workers to help run the resort and help Cody’s
local economy.
After Hargrove’s presentation there was a question-and-answer session that lasted about an hour and a half. With several questions raised by the public with topics ranging from water quality at the Sleeping Giant Resort to Cross Country Skiing and if the relationship with the U.S. Forest Service in all of this would be a factor. With officials from the U.S. Forest service, Piazza and Hargrove all stating that the relationship “was fine”.
There will be more public meetings in this process if the U.S. Forest service signs off on the purchase.
