Kentucky once paid $3.2 million to build a ski resort. Now it's willing to pay to make it go away.

        Closed for three years, the ski lodge at the General Butler State Resort Park has become run down and needs to be torn down, said park manager Harold “Shorty” Tomlinson.

        “The longer it sits there, the more it gets grown up and it becomes an eyesore for the park,” Mr. Tomlinson said.

        The state spent $3.2 million to build the ski resort in 1981 and has since written most of that expense off. Citizens for Ski Butler partnership leased the facility until 1997, when it closed. The partnership cited, among other things, several warm winters.

        “I'd say we all lost money — us and the state. It never was a paying thing,” said William Wheeler, a member of the partnership.

        Mr. Wheeler said the partnership spent about $500,000 and never made a profit.

        Before that, Paoli Peaks of Indiana operated the facility until it left after losing $365,000 in two years.

        The lodge is now empty, unsafe to use and too expensive to fix, Mr. Tomlinson said.

        “Our concern is the liability of it — having a structure that may not be sound or safe,” he said.

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