St. Grée di Viola
A Ligurian Alps resort a few tens of kilometres from the sea, bankrupt after the winter of 1997; a replacement chairlift was built with public money in 2006 and never ran, because the rules changed before it could be certified.
- Region
- Piedmont
- Country
- Italy
- Status
- abandoned
- Year opened
- early 1970s
- Year closed
- 1997
- Reason for closure
- Bankruptcy during the 1990s, brought on in part by snowless winters. The last winter the lifts ran was 1997. A chairlift rebuilt with public funds in 2006 never entered service because it was never certified - the regulations had changed in the meantime.
History
St. Grée di Viola stands at 1,200 m in the Ligurian Alps, in the comune of Viola, only a few tens of kilometres from the Mediterranean in a straight line - which tells you most of what you need to know about its snow. The resort went up in the early 1970s as a package of lifts and buildings marketed as the Porta della Neve, with residential and commercial blocks including a hotel, restaurant and swimming pool, and pistes running up to around 1,800 m on Monte Mindino. It went bankrupt during the 1990s, partly because of winters without snow, and the last season the lifts turned was 1997. The original installations were then dismantled. What makes this entry worth recording is what happened next: in 2006 a chairlift and a skating rink were rebuilt with public money, and the chairlift has never operated, because it was never certified - the regulations had changed while the work was going on. So the site holds a brand-new lift that has never carried a skier alongside the buildings of a failed resort, under split ownership between private hands and the bankruptcy trustee. The surveyors graded the environmental damage six out of six and the feasibility of clearing it one, the worst pairing in the Piedmont census.
Lifts
| Name | Type | Manufacturer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed lift | Chairlift | Built in 2006 with public money to replace the dismantled originals, and never commissioned: it was never certified, the rules having changed while it was being built | |
| Unnamed lift | Surface lift | The original lifts of the early 1970s, which served pistes reaching about 1,800 m on Monte Mindino. All were dismantled before the census was compiled, and no specification for them survives |
Sources and further reading
More in Italy
Location
44.2849, 7.9587