Echo Mountain ski area — the small ski hill 35 miles from downtown Denver that has enjoyed robust growth since opening six years ago — is for sale in an auction scheduled for early August.

“We’ve had six years of steady growth,” said owner Jerry Petitt, the Maryland hotelier who bought the 226-acre dormant Squaw Pass ski area at a 2002 auction for $700,000 and has since plowed several million dollars into developing the area. “But to reach the next level, Echo needs investment and expansion. And it’s time for new ownership to take it to that next level.”

Under Petitt, Echo Mountain has grown from 12,000 visits in its inaugural 2005-06 season to 32,000 last season. Just about every resort in the country limped through the 2011-12 ski season — the worst in two decades nationally for both snowfall and visitation. But Echo had decent snow and saw strong visitation, with revenue climbing 30 percent and daily ticket sales up 50 percent.

“It was a record year for us overall,” said Petitt, chief executive of the 14-team summer collegiate baseball Coastal Plain League who has bought and sold hotels across the country for decades.

The Denver office of international auction firm Sheldon Good & Co. is handling the sale. The firm offers swift sales and moves 90 percent of its listings, said chief executive Mark Troen.

“We get the deal done,” Troen said.

Without discussing a price, Petitt said: “Our whole aim is to get it sold, but we are not going to give it away either.”

“I asked the auction people what they think and it’s a wide range. The market sets the price so it’s hard to say what it’s going to sell for,” said Petitt, who will not close the ski area if bidders do not reach his undisclosed reserve price in the sealed bid auction.

The market for ski resorts is sporadic, especially in today’s troubled economic climate, which has pinched commercial real estate.

Recent ski-resort sales cover a broad range. Jackson Hole’s Storm King and Utah’s Brian Head have been on the market for more than a year. Last August, the Powderhorn ski area atop the Grand Mesa sold at auction for a paltry $1.4 million in a deal that included 600 developable acres. Vail Resorts picked up Lake Tahoe’s venerable and relatively expansive Kirkwood ski area in February for $18 million. Florida real estate investment trust CNL grabbed Washington’s uber-snowy Stevens Pass for $20.5 million last fall.

It’s a tough market, with almost no consensus in terms of pricing a ski area, said Mike Cahill, whose Greenwood Village-based Hospitality Real Estate Counselors specializes in commercial real estate and is listing Jackson’s 465-acre Storm King ski area, which includes a 204-room hotel, for an undisclosed price.

“Almost all ski resorts make their money off residential real estate sales,” Cahill said. “Without real estate it places the buyer dependent on just the ski industry.”

But skiing has worked for Echo. The hill straddling Squaw Pass has developed a loyal following as it evolved from pure terrain park to family-centric ski hill.

Troen and Petitt will trumpet the opportunities for Echo as they reach out to ski-industry veterans, resorts looking to expand their offerings and investors. The area’s summertime potential is ripe for expansion and the ski area could more than double its vertical drop.

“This will be valued not just on its tangibles but also its intangibles,” said Troen, who noted the parcel could host some residential development. “Not only by what the ownership has put in place but what the new ownership can add to that.”

Petitt has built parking lots, two base-area buildings, three lifts and 16 trails on 80 acres of the 226-acre parcel, which boasts top-tier snowmaking and lights for night skiing. His team has developed only a third of the parcel, opening the opportunity to expand its 660 feet of vertical to 1,500 feet.

Bids in the sealed auction are due Aug. 2. More information can be found at echomtnauction.com.

Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374 or jblevins@denverpost.com