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May 2007

Construction Site :: May 2007

New spas, lifts and hotels will greet visitors next season at several resorts.

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PEEK’N PEAK, NEW YORK
Peek’n Peak opened its new $1 million spa and café Apr. 15. The Spa was retrofitted into the Resort and Conference Center by renovating two meeting rooms and an arcade totalling 5,000 square feet. It adds bad-weather insurance, and something for non-sliders in any season.

Despite limited square footage, the spa includes two double wet treatment rooms (all with full height quartz and glass tile), two private wet treatment rooms, an experiential steam shower, three dry treatment rooms, and one hair and nail care room. The Spa sports bamboo and natural cork floors, granite sink and countertops and maple raised panel wainscot. Cost came in at $210 per square foot.

This is the first phase of a much larger facility that will incorporate complete hair and nail care, custom water features, enlarged lounge and locker room facilities, as well as more treatment rooms.


WINTER PARK, COLORADO
Winter Park's $8 million Leitner-Poma Panoramic Express in Parsenn Bowl will be the highest, high-speed, six-pack chairlift in North America, rising to 12,060 feet. Construction began in March, when crews could move equipment over the snow and reduce the environmental impact to rare vegetation and Alpine tundra at the top terminal. As an added benefit, skiers and riders have had front row seats to watch the construction. Winter Park moved a 40-ton crane and two backhoes to the summit to build the return terminal, which was scheduled for installation by the end of April, and to set the top tower. “Winter Park did a great job of maintaining a good snow road; Poma built a big sled for pulling supplies up the hill. We built the top terminal in two halves so we could haul it up,” says Poma’s Tom Clink.

Concrete was poured via helicopter, despite challenging wind and weather conditions, and Leitner-Poma crews heated the ground to ensure proper setting. The bottom-drive, top-tension setup—a top drive terminal would have been too big to move over the snow—means that the rope tension is particularly high. “We had to use a special design, with bigger rams and stuff like that,” says Clink, to accommodate the tension. Initial capacity for the 1,000-hp DC drive lift is 2,600, with a design capacity of 3,200. Line length is 7,223 feet on 1,640 vertical feet; the lift will complete the trip in just over 7 minutes. It will be ready in plenty of time for the 2007-08 season.


Snowmass, Colorado
Part of the massive makeover of Snowmass Village, the $17 million Treehouse Kids’ Adventure Center will be front and center when it opens in November for the 2007-2008 season. The two-story, 25,000-square-foot Adventure Center, located at the intersection of the three new lifts on Fanny Hill, connects with the new Elk Camp beginner’s area.

The Treehouse brings the outdoors inside through hands-on, interactive activities. Each room’s design is tailored for a specific age group. One example: The Alpine Climbing Room features a custom-designed children’s museum, Aspen Leaf Climber climbing wall and Nature Shack. It gives children the opportunity to climb and explore, exercising their bodies and minds while focusing on the mountain environment and the area’s mining history.

As part of the village, the Treehouse incorporates energy-saving measures that exceed local codes by 30 percent, as well as energy-saving transportation and waste management strategies. The base village itself will eventually feature a 15,000-square-foot conference space, 64,000 square feet of new shops and restaurants, a community aquatic center, a 246-unit conference hotel, and 359 condominiums.


TAMARACK RESORT, IDAHO
The Village at Tamarack Resort is expanding with the significant development of Village Plaza, the resort’s second phase. The $91 million, six-building, multi-tiered Village Plaza, which will open in summer 2008, features 129 hotel condominiums, a movie theater, and 23 boutiques, shops, and restaurants with an emphasis on unique business concepts. In all, the project encompasses 273,000 total square feet (including 35,990 of commercial space). The condominiums sold out in October 2005, generating $120 million. Condos range from studios to three-bedroom penthouses, with prices ranging from $350,000 to $2.78 million. When complete, the Village will complement the resort’s first phase, which consists of slopeside Sprung Structures services facilities, a boutique hotel and the three-building Arling Center, a historically inspired hamlet.

The Village will be a visitor-friendly community. All walkways and streets will be snow melted to create safe foot travel throughout the winter and eliminate night-time "back-up chimes" from snow removal equipment on big snow events. On the environmental front, energy-efficient VFD pumps power the hot water and snow-melt systems, and the use of panelized walls and truss roof systems reduces construction waste.


SUN PEAKS, BRITISH COLUMBIA
The Delta Residences, a C$30-million, 41-unit condo-hotel with 16 commercial units, completes the ski-in, ski-out village core here nearly 14 years after it began. The one-and two-bedroom quarter shares, the first fractional offerings at the resort, have been well received; the building is approximately 75 percent sold, with completion set for late summer. One-bedroom quartershares, 655 square feet to 756 square feet, run C$99,900 to C$149,900. Two-bedroom shares, 890 square feet to 1,127 square feet, are C$156,900 to C$191,900.

The Residences are green-built as well. Sun Peaks was the first North American resort to adopt ISO 14001 environmental standards (in 2003), which mandate meeting environmental regulations for excavation, water runoff, and storage of materials onsite. And since water conservation is a resort-wide goal, all fixtures are low-flow, with dual-flush toilets. “That reduces water consumption significantly and reduces water treatment costs,” says Peter Nixon, Sun Peaks manager of real estate development.