The city is still negotiating with Intrawest Corp. of Canada and locally-based East West Partners and was unwilling to release the documents while negotiations continue.

Denver expects to choose a winner before the end of the year.

''As a group, we were really pleased,'' Liz Orr, Denver's special projects director tells GlobeSt.com. ''We're incredibly pleased. The firms obviously put a lot of thought into this first round.''

None of the four that didn't make the final round had any fatal flaws. It was just that the two finalist, Intrawest Corp. and East West Partners, appeared to meet the needs of the city the best.

''To the best of my knowledge, Winter Park represents the biggest undeveloped, leased ski area opportunity in North America,'' Orr tells GlobeSt.com. ''It's a wonderful mountain. But very little of the base has been developed. It presents an opportunity not seen anywhere else in the country.''

The four bidders who didn't make the cut are Grand Elk Partnership, headed by ski veteran Jerry Jones from Granby, just down the road from Winter Park; Utah-based Powdr Corp.; Okemo of Vermont; and Hines Resorts, whose parent is based in Houston and is one of the country's largest developers. Hines also developed the recentlycompleted Zephyr condo project at the base of Winter Park.

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