Executives
Carol McCune – IR, Daly Gray Public Relations
John Emery – CEO
Jim Calder – CFO
Analysts
Bill Crow – Raymond James
Hayley Wolff – Rochdale Securities
Will Marks – JMP Securities
Steve Wieczynski – Stifel Nicolaus
Great Wolf Resorts, Inc. (WOLF) Q1 2008 Earnings Call Transcript May 6, 2008 10:00 AM ET
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Great Wolf Resorts first quarter 2008 earnings conference call. During today's presentation, all parties will be in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, the conference will be open for questions. (Operator instructions) This conference is being recorded today, May 6, 2008. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Carol McCune, Senior Vice President of Daly Gray Public Relations. Please go ahead.
Carol McCune
Thank you, Josh. Good morning everyone, and welcome to Great Wolf Resorts' first quarter 2008 earnings conference call. This morning Great Wolf released results – their first quarter 2008 results and I hope you've had a chance to review the press release. So please call our office at 703-435-6293 if you do not receive the release, and we'll be happy to e-mail you a copy. You also may view a copy of the release at the company's website, www.greatwolf.com, by clicking on Great Wolf Resort's icon, at the bottom left of the page, and then clicking on the News Releases button.
A replay of this conference call will be available later today at the company's website and at the www.streetevents.com site for 30 days. A recording of the call will be available by telephone until midnight, on Tuesday May 13, 2008 by dialing 800-405-2236, reference number 11113052. A replay of the conference call will be posted on the company's website through June 6, 2008. The conference call is the property of Great Wolf Resorts, and any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of the call, in any form, without the expressed written consent of Great Wolf, is prohibited.
Management has asked me to inform you that in compliance with the SEC's Safe Harbor guidelines that certain statements that might be made during today's conference call, could be considered forward-looking and subject to certain risks, that could cause results to differ materially from those projected. Those statements may include but are not limited to, estimates of the company's future revenues, earnings, and development activities. I refer you to the company's SEC filings for further information on the factors that could cause actual results to differ from any estimates.
Now I'd like to turn to introduce John Emery, Chief Executive Officer and Jim Calder, Chief Financial Officer, who will provide you with some insight into the company's first-quarter 2008 financial and operating results. Now let me turn the session over to John Emery. John?
John Emery
Thank you, Carol. And thanks everyone for dialing in. We obviously have a lot of news to discuss this quarter. I'll start with our operating results, and I'll cover my announcement towards the end of the call here. I think the biggest highlight of the quarter is the strength of our same-store sales. Both in Q1, but also looking forward into Q2 as well, I'll touch on that a little more in a second. But we’ve seen great strength here, even in this challenging economy that we're in, in our business model. The model really is showing its strength in this type of environment, where clearly families are going to spend time together, and given our model of convenience and value for a family, has been working quite well for us.
We had over 6% same-store growth in the first quarter. That's pure same-store number. We're seeing that those in-room revenue and ancillary spending. We're seeing it kind of across the board. Most of that growth is in rate [ph], and our ability to yield manage a lot of that, is technology-based, and a lot of that is marketing-based, but we're seeing good strength there. The reflection – the value proposition that we offer for families, the ability to – it's almost like a comfort food type of scenario, where it's not just spending less money. You're a little closer to home. You're nesting with your family. It's a very feel-good type of experience. It's a short experience. You're not taking the full week off. You're not committing thousands of thousands of dollars. While that model obviously work great in the stronger environment, it seems to be holding up on a relative basis much, much better, than most consumer spending models in this environment. And we see no change in that going forward at this point. Obviously, we can't predict the entire future. Our booking window isn't that long. But our second quarter bookings to date through April, and forward bookings right now through June, are both well ahead of last year's pace, so we're pleased with that.
In addition to those same great store numbers, both of our recently opened resorts are well exceeding our revenue expectations already. So, that's very pleasing to see. The bookings, they've already happened in forward bookings that each of those resorts have run well ahead of the average of our last few openings. So, certainly those are markets that we thought would be strong, but it's certainly comforting in this environment to see the strength of those openings, and forward-booking pays in both those assets.
In this release we added a little bit of information we had not historically provided, again to kind of simplify the ability to value our real estate. There's a table in the release, it shows just consolidated resort stats. And one of the things that jumped out to me when we looked at that is even with Grapevine just ramping up in the first quarter of this year we're over $440 million revenue per occupied room in the first quarter, which is an 8% jump over last year. So, you do see great growth there. What you see is not just a reflection of this economy, this environment's good for us, or great marketing. What you see are, with the Grapevines of the world, the newer assets, is an expanded business model. We're offering more for people to do. They're paying more for it, even in this environment. You see it already in the trailing numbers right out of the box, to have a brand-new property help pull up our overall revenue numbers like that, is quite astounding. And we wind up with over 8% growth, year-over-year, just in consolidated assets.
The business model importantly, I think this is a big deal in how our stocks are valued today. It's not just doing well from a cash flow standpoint, it's been doing well from a cash flow standpoint for a long time, but our balance sheet risk is abating quite a bit. And I think that's a big deal in this capital environment. Specifically, if you look back, call it six months ago, before we opened Grapevine, we had over $400 million of construction projects in progress. That was Grapevine, the Grapevine expansion, Grand Mound, and Concord. We had a huge amount of dollars committed to construction projects that were not producing cash flow. With the largest of those two projects now open, and both producing very good cash flow for us already, it dramatically improves our overall financial position. So, not only is our trailing cash flow, forward cash flow picking up very quickly, but our forward capital commitments have dropped by well over half just in the last six months, and we're down to two projects that we're committed to right now, those are the Grapevine expansion, which opens up the end of this year. Clearly the demand we've seen in Grapevine, both for leisure and group, justifies that 200-room expansion and the meeting space expansion, that will be very well received down there.
The Concord assets, which again, is a great market, it feeds all the Carolinas. It's located in a fantastic spot in Concord, where there's lots of other leisure stuff to do. It's the home of NASCAR, there's a lot of good stuff going on down there. It's got great meeting space with it, just like our other new asset has. And that project will open up in a little less than a year. It will open up roughly sometime in relatively early '09. The good thing about those two commitments is, all the capital required to open up everything we're committed to is already in place. So, either cash on the balance sheet, or the loan that we recently closed for the Concord construction project, all that's in place. So there's no need– we've some typical rollovers of debt to do in the next 12 to 24 months, but those are assets that flow cash. I don't expect issues there. And all of our capital requirements – or cash requirements for capital commitments are already in place. I do think the balance sheet, even over the last two to three months has dramatically improved from a risk standpoint, and makes me very, very comfortable going forward.
Additionally, from a capital allocation standpoint, a forward capital standpoint, as we mentioned the last earnings call, and we've talked about for quite some time, we remain very cautious in our planned commitments for new projects. There are three of our LOIs that are in the earnings release again, as they typically are. Each of these potential projects is in the pre-development stage. They'll very likely be dependent on JV partnerships and/or debt market conditions before they're done. So, we'll not make a forward capital commitment without 100% certainty on where that capital is coming from and we won't do it using the preponderance of our capital. So, to the extent that those deals move forward, we intend that they will at the appropriate time. We'll do it without – they won't be wholly-owned assets, and they'll be done in a way that gives us very little capital risk, but still giving a great return at the asset level, because there are markets that if you look at our same-store performance, and you look at Grapevine, and you look at Grand Mound, you really want to build in Connecticut as soon as you can. You really want to build in Atlanta as soon as you can. I know it's a tough capital market. But those assets, the demand is there. Those assets will have great returns in my opinion. We do want to get those built. We just want to do it in a way that doesn't stress our capital structure very much, if at all.
In summary, before I turn it over to Jim for financial comments, the last six months in my view, have really simplified our overall model. It's easier to value us, it's easier to evaluate the risk of us. Because we only have a three-week booking window, and we've been booking through this very tough consumer environment, we know the consumers aren't backing off our product today. It's not a six-month window. They're not staying, but they want to make the same decision today. They're making those decisions today, in this environment, to come stay with us, and they're doing it at a pace running well ahead of last year. So, what you see with us is pretty much real time business model, in terms of what consumers are looking at, and what our model is. Of course that can always be impacted, if gas really goes to $200 barrel, well goes to $200 a barrel like Goldman Sachs came out and said, does [ph] that impact us? I don't know, I assume at some point the economy if it gets so bad, it could impact us. I can't commit that it's recession-proof. But it clearly appears to be recession-resistant in the environment that we're in right now, today.
Looking at results, we've had eight straight quarters of same-store growth, but the last two quarters have been some of our best, if not our best, in terms of same-store growth, that we've ever had. I don't want to put all of that in people are staying closer to home, because that's not all of what it is. That's a piece of it. But don't underestimate our marketing improvements, in the way we market our properties. We spend a tremendous amount of time. We have a tremendously qualified internal/external team doing our marketing. And they've made great strides online marketing, all kinds of marketing that we think have had a direct result in improving our business. So, what I think you see, in these last two quarters of great growth, is a combination of a job very, very well-done in getting the awareness out there for people to book, combined with an environment where people are looking to book, with our type of product. So, I think those two things combined are really what are driving that growth, not just one or the other. Our forward pace as I mentioned earlier, continues to remain strong. There probably will be a little shift in same-store growth, in that the second quarter doesn't have the two to three weeks of Easter break in it, that it had last year. April year-over-year is very tough comp for us. But with that our forward-looking pace has been very positive year over year. We actually still expect to see growth. I wouldn't expect to see the same-store growth we saw in the first quarter or fourth quarter, simply because you lost two or three weeks of spring break, that are obviously very high occupancy and rate for us, that you don't have in April that you had last year. But overall, looking at the second quarter and the balance of the year, we still see very healthy growth.
The projects that are announced in our earnings release, or stated earnings release on our LOI, those are outstanding A-plus locations. They're A-markets. More importantly, within those markets, they're A-plus locations within those markets. They're all what we call pre-development. That's where we're working to get permits approvals. We're work with potential JV partners. They're great projects longer term. We'd love to be the brand of the operator, and the equity participant. But we don't believe that we need to be, certainly don't intend to be – have additionally wholly-owned assets. In this capital environment we plan to do those through joint ventures. What we believe is that we can execute our forward-brand growth plan, a combination of a U.S./international through these joint ventures without the big capital commitments, but still increase our unit count over the next several years. Given the strength and the returns of the resorts that have been open for a few years, and the ones that just opened, we think those investment parameters will help us grow the business, without all that commitment and capital.
Now I'll turn it over to Jim for some financial comments, and I'll be back to talk about my announcement as well.
Jim Calder
Thank you, John. Just a couple brief financial comments, specifics here. As the release points out, we had $19.4 million of adjusted EBITDA and net income of $0.04 per share in the first quarter. Both these numbers are well above the consensus analyst estimates for the quarter. The $19.4 million of adjusted EBITDA is very close to top of the range that we put out for the quarter. It's up 75% from $11.1 million of adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter of last year. Again, we're very happy with that growth that we saw at both the top line, which talk about through our same-store sales, and flowing through down to the bottom line. As John mentioned, we did have some effects from the Easter shift and the holiday into the first quarter '08. That only does have some positive effect. But even with that our results are obviously very strong.
Our benchmark Great Wolf Resorts operating stats for the quarter, occupancy was up 20 basis points, ADR was up 6%, RevPAR was up 6.3%, and total RevPAR was 6.1%. So again, really outstanding stats, that we're happy with, in the face of what's generally considered to be a pretty challenging overall economy right now. We're happy with the way things have held up.
In terms of capital structure and liquidity, we talked at length on the last quarterly call, about the market in general. And clearly it's a very challenging capital market. But we think we're navigating through it very well, as John discussed. As we mentioned at the last call, in February, we put a temporary loan in place on our Williamsburg Resort, a $55 million one-year loan. This is at a very low loan-to-value, just sort of a temporary measure, to let the markets calm down a little bit. Our expectation is here in the next nine months, we'll put a more – what I'll call a more traditional loan, in terms of size, and terms of term in place on the Williamsburg loan. Just to put it in perspective, that $55 million loan is probably south of 40% of the value in our estimation, of the Williamsburg Resort. So clearly, there's some room for upsizing the loan, as the markets come back to more traditional balance, in terms of debt available. And we are actively engaged with several potential lenders working on that. Not sure when we'll have an announcement on it, but we're actively engaged on it, and things are progressing nicely.
As we announced last week, we just put in place a $64 million construction loan on our Concord asset. As everyone, I'm sure, on a call realizes, construction financing for large real estate projects, has been very problematic the last six months. We're happy to get a large loan like this in place. The great thing is it is expandable up to $79.9 million. So, we had the potential to increase it by another $16 million. And we'll be working with the lead lender to do that. This is funded through a syndicate of largely smaller banks, community banks, things like that. We'll be working in that community over the next 90 days or so, to try to upsize it up towards the $79.9 million. We're optimistic that we're going to be able to do that. But again this is a four-year loan. It stabilizes that piece of the capital structure, and ensures that we've all the liquidity we need to finish Concord, and to finish our Grapevine expansion to 203 suites, we're building down there.
Just to reiterate, the Concord construction is going very well. It is on track. Set to open in the spring of '09. The same with the Grapevine expansion construction. The first phase of that is scheduled to open in December of '08. So both those projects are expected to be right on time. We do mention in the release as we talked about before, we are looking at some of our lower levered assets. I mentioned the Williamsburg assets, and some of our other assets, we're looking to perhaps increase our borrowings on those to get them to more – what I'd call, customary or traditional levels, to increase our liquidity there a little bit also. So, we may have some announcements on that. But I don't expect anything imminent. But we're working on those as well. Just to touch real briefly on guidance. Our guidance for Q2 is in the $12.5 million to $14.5 million range, for adjusted EBITDA. And again, remember this reflects the shifting of the Easter holidays, between '08 and '07.
Our full-year range, we've kept constant at the $62 million to $70 million our range, that we put out at the beginning of the year. We did end up toward the top end of our range for Q1. But obviously, clearly there's still some consumer uncertainty in the marketplace. We want to remain cautious with that. And that's why we're going to keep our range in the $62 million to $70 million range, where we set it at the beginning of the year. And as always, our ranges are based on what we've seen so far this year. We look very closely at our booking patterns for Q2. Our actual bookings or our actual results that we have preliminarily for April, and we're very comfortable based on all of that information.
Now I'll turn it back to John for some closing comments of his, before we turn it over to Q&A.
John Emery
Thanks, Jim. As we mentioned in the release, I do plan to step down as CEO. There's obviously never a good time for this kind of transition. Particularly, when you enjoy the brand and the people. But with Kim, Jim, and Hernan in place, frankly my job has probably been about the easiest one in the company, the last 12 months. Things have really settled down. We have both of our big assets that we've been working on open. Our next big opening is almost a year away.
We've had a couple great straight years, and four-and-a-half years of travel has been tough on me, even though I absolutely love the company. I'm a large shareholder. I intend to stay a large shareholder. I firmly believe in it. I do need a little bit of a transition of lifestyle here, which has been a long time in coming. I don't think anybody plans to travel for five years in a row. I know I certainly didn't, the day I started this. But the company is in the best shape it's been in, certainly since I've been here. We have great leadership in place. It's probably what I'm proudest of is the fact, from a day-to-day standpoint this company absolutely runs without me. My job has focused on strategy. Not day-to-day, for quite some time. So it is in fantastic shape. I want to thank Randy for coming in to help me, in the transition just to make sure all our external stuff stays smooth, while Kim, Jim, and Hernan continue to run everything day-to-day. We've not set a firm timeframe yet. We'll do that shortly. But I assure you we'll make it as smooth as possible. I'll do whatever I can to make sure it's smooth.
I want to end with thanking Kim, Jim, and Hernan, and all 5,000-plus people out there, that have made this a fantastic brand. I'm sure it's going to be tremendously successful. I'm looking forward to being a part of it in my own way, going forward. So I want to thank all of the investors that have supported us over the years, and everybody else, and I look forward to seeing a lot of success here.
So operator, now we're ready for Q&A.
Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Bill Crow, Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Bill Crow – Raymond James
Good morning, guys. John, congratulations. I think the last couple years have been terrific, from an execution perspective, and getting the company righted, from a tough beginning. A couple of questions here. The reference to the bookings up 7% in the second quarter, I assume that's what, through the end of May, basically was a three-week booking window?
John Emery
That's looking through June – and just to clarify, Bill, that does not mean our same-store growth will be that high for the second quarter. I think what’s happening as we're marketing so well, people are booking sooner. But you still have a lot of sold out dates in June, that you can only sell so many rooms. We don't expect to set – it's comforting to have it on the books early, especially in this environment. But I just want to make sure we clarify, I'm not expecting to be up year-over-year 7% for the quarter.
Jim Calder
That's just a pure number of rooms on the books.
Bill Crow – Raymond James
Yes. I understand that. Now, where is ADR relative to that 7%? Where are you relative to a year ago? Can you give us that?
John Emery
The ADR will be – won't show the big jump it did in the fourth and first quarter, because the second quarter is when we really hammer group sales. We've got a ton of group late into May, which is as you know, is our weakest month of the year. We've got a lot of occupancy driving those room nights, but you're not going to have quite the rate. But the occupancy– obviously the flow-through for us is extremely high, because you're literally selling nights that you may not have sold otherwise, if you weren't pushing group.
Bill Crow – Raymond James
Yes. Jim, a couple questions for you. Preopening costs for the remainder of the year, now that you have those two properties open, will there be any preopening costs associated with the Grapevine expansion?
Jim Calder
There probably will be some, Bill. It's early right now. We haven't really developed a detailed marketing plan, and what not, that will be involved in that. The Grapevine expansion opens up in a couple different pieces, part in December, part in probably January, February. We're unsure exactly what exactly the timing is going to be on those. There will also be some moderate costs throughout the year on Concord, as we're building that. There are certain items that have to be expensed for GAAP, throughout the construction period. So, there will be some for the Grapevine expansion and some for Concord as well, throughout the rest of the year.
Bill Crow – Raymond James
Okay. Does your guidance that was presented in the press release reflect any anticipated severance related to John's change?
John Emery
No.
Jim Calder
No, it does not, Bill.
Bill Crow – Raymond James
John, could you just kind of – I mean, everybody wants to ask questions that aren't going to get answered here, but how much did the disagreements kind of – within the board, the fighting that's been going on, pressure from Hovde and other shareholders, how much did that weigh into your decision here?
John Emery
I didn't clarify that quite a bit. It really is truly a personal decision, Bill, after four-and-a-half years of travel. I'm more than happy to talk to people that have know me a long time, off-line just to confirm that. The Hovde situation, the only thing that really impacted to me, was not my decision, at all. But the timing, what I wanted to do, was clear up my board seat, and my decision, so that the board can then handle all the other situations without multiple steps here. And so the absence of the Hovde situation, I might not have felt pressure to make a decision, by an earnings call, or something like that. It just seemed like, we're getting ready to put a proxy out, we've an earnings call, it just seemed a little unfair to do those things, and then make my final decision later. So, I've just been talking to the board for awhile, and that's what we came up with.
Bill Crow – Raymond James
Yes.
John Emery
I think, this is John talking, I think the Hovde situation will work out fine. As I told all investors, I think it's healthy to have an investor on the board. I've been supportive of that for a long time. I actually think that situation is a lot less volatile, than people assume it is. That's my opinion, you know, knowing all the parties involved. I don't expect that to be a big issue going forward, is my personal view.
Bill Crow – Raymond James
Is Randy available – is he available for questions?
John Emery
No, he's not available, no.
Bill Crow – Raymond James
Okay. I'll follow up with you off-line later in the day.
John Emery
Thank you.
Bill Crow – Raymond James
Thanks, John.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Hayley Wolff, Rochdale Securities, please go ahead.
Hayley Wolff – Rochdale Securities
Hello, guys. John, I also wish you luck, and I can certainly appreciate why communicating from Virginia to Wisconsin, can wear on you after a couple years.
John Emery
Thank you.
Hayley Wolff – Rochdale Securities
A couple questions. First in terms of the tone of business, can you give a sense of – as these people maybe substitute down, to closer to home vacations, does that influence length of stay? And also are you seeing any kind of substitution maybe to cheaper rooms?
John Emery
Hayley, it's interesting. I think as we've done such a good job, really Kim and her team, of making the experience more upscale and broader, we're actually kind of going another direction, we're seeing demand for the themed rooms, we're seeing demand for Magic Quest type stuff, we're seeing demand for the extras. And maybe what that is, is people are looking at it more as, a primary vacation than a secondary vacation, and so they are putting more into it. Certainly they're spending more than they ever have, when they walk in the door, which tells me that they're considering this a big deal for the family, and they're committed to it. We haven't seen an atypical change in the length of stay. Summer is typically longer, only because kids are out of school, and it's easier for people to take a little more vacation. But our model really is designed for that two, three day. So one, two night, three-night stay, is not designed for the seven-day stay. It gets a little pricey for that, obviously. It really – so the model itself has not– we've not seen a big shift in the way people are using it.
Hayley Wolff – Rochdale Securities
Okay. Another question, does your departure have any effect on delaying the pipeline? You know, what does it mean for continuity with banks and some of the international licensing negotiations that are going on?
John Emery
I really think it will be extremely smooth in this environment, given the underlying strength of the company. I do know quite well, all of our partners in those areas and they know me quite well, and all the other players. In reality you've got our treasurer Alex Lombardo, Jim, Kim, Hernan. Those relationships were never just with me. I don't expect it to be a big issue given that I'm leaving, with a very, very, positive view of the future of this company. And there's no – there's nothing but mutual, complete focus on the long-term health of this company from me, even though I'm transitioning, and everybody else here is not. I think it will be fine.
Hayley Wolff – Rochdale Securities
Okay. And one last question, could you give us an update on group booking trends?
Jim Calder
Group bookings for us, are our way up, especially longer term. Some of that is we've more space, and what we're seeing is – as we thought we would, and we've talked about for a long time, I mean, Great Wolf Lodges are fantastic places for meetings. Especially, when we build stand-alone conference facilities next to them, where you can hold a meeting in a facility that's attached to the overall resort. But the Grand Mound out west for us has blown away every record we've ever had, in forward-bookings for group, in terms of a new property opening. Our property in Mason, Ohio where we built our first really large conference center will set a very big record this year for group rooms that no property has ever touched. You're talking about properties booking, literally 20,000-plus room nights a year, of group, in 400-room resorts. You go back to our model three years ago, for us to pick up 4,000, 5,000 group nights, and most of that was semi-group. It was kind of pseudo-leisure, pseudo-group. Mason will have 20,000-plus, we think, group nights this year. That's a huge piece of business of that property. That property, same-store numbers, should do great this year, in large effect from group. The leisure's going to do well down there, because it's the second year we're marketing with Kings Island, but group's working really well for us.
Hayley Wolff – Rochdale Securities
Great. Thanks a lot.
John Emery
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Will Marks, JMP Securities. Please go ahead.
Will Marks – JMP Securities
Thank you. Good morning. I was first wondering – on insider shares. If you can mention outside of you, John, the original, I guess it was six founders, approximately how much stock do they have? And are any of them complete– I guess some of them are completely out at this point.
John Emery
Kim and I as insiders, Kim has over 500,000 shares. I'm well over 600,000 shares. The other insiders, as far as we know, are not significant shareholders today. We obviously don't know for sure. I've not had any communication from them about share holdings. I don't know for sure, Will, but I don't believe given the fact that most of them left three plus years ago, that they've maintained extremely large share holdings, in one company. I don't think they're big players here. I think Kim and I are – certainly the rest of senior management has positions that are relatively important, in their personal finances. I will state very clearly my intention here, I do believe that there's a lot of value in the stock, in the very, very, near term, for lots of reasons. I certainly don't intend to walk away from that. I don't need to. This is not my only large investment. I'm more than happy to let Kim and everybody else do a little work here, and get me some value there.
Will Marks – JMP Securities
Can you tell me on Randy Churchey as interim CEO, actually I guess not so much on him, what is the board's actual plan? Have you hired a recruiting firm at this point?
John Emery
All that transition stuff will be put in place. My presumption is, of course, that we'll bring a firm in and the– Randy's coming in as interim really, I think, to make sure we coordinate all the stuff going on. There's obviously a lot of stuff with – outside day-to-day running of the business. I expect it will be a pretty normal process, to look at, as the right thing to do here. As I've mentioned, there's fantastic leadership in place, in this company already. I was part of a team. I was part of a very, very strong team. I think it's easier, than people presume. In a lot of companies, you got a CEO, maybe who founded it, who is an autocrat, who does everything. That's not my style. I'm a team person. I'm a team builder. I love having people around me, who are far better than I am at what they do. That makes my transition much easier, because I'm not leaving a huge gap in the sense of, what's going to happen day-to-day. Obviously, strategy will be Randy, will help focus on strategy in the short term. I really do think this will go very, very smoothly.
Will Marks – JMP Securities
You did make a comment. I want to you clarify, I think it was in your prepared remarks about you leaving, would free up to the company to do something. Could you expand on that?
John Emery
I'm not sure –
Will Marks – JMP Securities
Maybe I misunderstood exactly. I just thought you were implying, that there were some things the company could go about doing, without you there.
John Emery
Not at all. Not at all.
Will Marks – JMP Securities
Let me change the subject a minute. On construction, how much – as of the end of the quarter, was there any money yet to be spent at Grand Mound?
Jim Calder
At the end of the quarter –
John Emery
I'm sure there's a little bit of closeout. But Grand Mound's not consolidated. That's separately funded. So the loan for Grand Mound, the funding for Grand Mound is already lined up. So, that won't have an impact on our balance sheet directly.
Jim Calder
Correct.
Will Marks – JMP Securities
Okay. What is the total off balance sheet amount, or what was the final construction cost of that project?
Jim Calder
Our equity investment, I think our condo is $16 million, $17 million, something like that. That project – I'd need to check with the Triad [ph] to see, because we're a minority owner, so that's really their number. I'd need to check with them to see if they want to disclose it. We disclose like Grapevine, all in, will be 350 a key. I'm not sure Grand Mound, because it's not our asset to disclose, I'm not sure that we've talked about that one, specifically.
Will Marks – JMP Securities
Can you give us any indication, is it within that range? Would it cost less or more than –
John Emery
The hard cost should have been relatively consistent with Grand Mound – I mean with Grapevine. There are other costs in that that are kind of JV partnership costs, that have to do with putting a property in trust, and things like that, that wouldn't be applicable to a normal project. That's why off the top of my head, I don't really know that number, because it's not really all our cash. We tend to focus more on our cash and our investment. And so I was thinking Grapevine, Concord, we know precisely, what our costs and returns are going to be.
Will Marks – JMP Securities
Okay. My last question is somewhat related. In your financial data you mentioned the $40.7 million of construction in progress, for projects under construction, but not yet open. Is that all for the expansion?
Jim Calder
Will, this is Jim Calder. That is all for Concord, which is under construction, the resort down in Concord, North Carolina and partially for the expansion down in Grapevine, Texas. It's a combination of those two.
Will Marks – JMP Securities
Can you give us an approximate 50/50 or –
Jim Calder
It's probably 75/25. More Concord than Grapevine.
Will Marks – JMP Securities
Okay. That's all from me. Thank you very much.
John Emery
Thanks, Will.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Steve Wieczynski, Stifel Nicolaus. Please go ahead.
Steve Wieczynski – Stifel Nicolaus
Good morning, guys.
Jim Calder
Good morning.
Steve Wieczynski – Stifel Nicolaus
Most of my questions have been answered. Real quick for Jim. Is CapEx this year still going to be around 150?
Jim Calder
I don't have our 10-Q right in front of me, Steve. If that's a number we put before – and remember that CapEx number we disclosed there includes not just funding from equity, but funding from debt and all sources. But I think it's consistent with what we would have reported in our 10-K at the end of the year.
Steve Wieczynski – Stifel Nicolaus
There's no material changes?
Jim Calder
No. No significant changes at all. No. Exactly what we disclosed before.
Steve Wieczynski – Stifel Nicolaus
Got it. John, I think I heard you right here, basically your bookings look pretty strong. I think you said you haven't seen a slowdown in spending once the people get to the properties. Did I hear you right?
John Emery
That's absolutely correct.
Steve Wieczynski – Stifel Nicolaus
Okay. Great. Thanks, guys.
John Emery
Thank you.
Operator
(Operator instructions) Our next question – just one moment, please. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude our question-and-answer session. I will turn the conference back over to management for closing remarks. Please go ahead.
John Emery
Thank you, operator. Thanks everyone for listening to the call. Jim, Kim, and I are all available for any follow-ups. Just give us a call. Thank you.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude the Great Wolf Resorts' first quarter 2008 earnings conference call. If you'd like to listen to a replay of today's conference, please dial 1-800-405-2236. The pass code is 11113052-pound. ACT would like to thank you for your participation, have a pleasant day. You may now disconnect.
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