*UPDATED BELOW*

It all started when a pencil pusher in a mountainside cubicle forgot to send a renewal letter. Back then (2014), Vail Resorts – with the backing of Talisker Land Holdings Corp- slipped the tablecloth out from under PCMR leaders and became owners of two of the three ski areas in Park City. Since then, Talisker, VR’s landlord, has gone belly up in the Wasatch and so the Park City drama continues this week.

It’s anyone’s guess who’ll be vying for the Talisker’s tony land holdings up for auction Tuesday morning. Wells Fargo foreclosed on a patchwork of the company’s properties peppering Wasatch and Summit Counties and those will be up for grabs at 10 a.m. at the 3rd District Court building in Silver Summit. This will be one of the most significant property sales since the original Talisker upheaval.

Wells Fargo filed a lawsuit last February on behalf of itself and another lender and secured a $165.9 million judgment against Talisker.  Real estate developers, lawyers, private parties and spectators are expected to attend as undeveloped parcels in Tuhaye, Empire Pass, and undeveloped land in Summit County will be sold to offset that amount.

There’s a decent chance that Wells Fargo itself will place a “credit bid” (the bank bids the amount owed) and send other bidders packing. Park City attorney Joe Wrona told the Park Record that he has several clients who want a piece of the action. “The land has been bottled up and held captive by Talisker,” Wrona said. Talisker sat on the property because it lacked the money to build so developers may now be anxious to seize the freed-up land and capitalize on its location near the “nation’s largest resort.”

Winning bidders have until 5 p.m. Nov. 17 to transfer funds to the County Courthouse.

UPDATE:

The auction went as expected. Wells Fargo submitted the credit bid of $35 million and took ownership in the property at stake. No one wanted to bid more as much of the 2100 acres is unrelated to each other. So now Wells Fargo will parcel it out and sell it. There are several developers already in negotiations with WF. Today’s close was legally significant because this massive amount of real estate and Talisker’s last vestige of its holdings in the Park City area have been extinguished. So now, to a large degree, the drama is done. There are rumors that Jack Bistricer is trying to find a financier to reacquire the property he’s lost but that’s a longshot.