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New Resort Will Bring Opportunity
Revelstoke will soon be home to the world's longest skiable vertical. Progress at Revelstoke Mountain Resort just took a major step forward in January with the announcement that a contract for a $22-million gondola and high-speed quad chairlift was signed with Leitner Poma Canada Inc.
Along with the gondola and chairlift contract, the resort announced the signing of purchase agreements for local heli-skiing company Selkirk Tangiers. With the spring acquisition of Selkirk Tangiers, Revelstoke Mountain Resort will become a one-stop destination for lift- , cat- and heli-skiing. The inclusion of the heli-skiing operation will mean the resort will boast over 500,000 acres of skiable terrain.
If all goes as planned, the initial phase of lift installations will start in the spring, allowing the first eight-person gondola and high-speed quad chairlift to be operational by the official opening of the resort in fall 2007.
One heli of an experience
For over 28 years, Peter Schlunegger - the current owner of Selkirk Tangiers - has been guiding people on ski trips in the Monashee and Selkirk mountains around Revelstoke.
Now, he is planning on handing over operational duties to one of his guides who has been with him for 23 seasons.
"I will be just on a consulting basis for a year or so," said Schlunegger. "All the same people will stay involved: all the guides and all the office people. It's not a huge change as far as that goes."
Schlunegger sees the potential amalgamation of Selkirk Tangiers with Revelstoke Mountain Resort as a good way to allow more people the opportunity to try heli-skiing.
"I think that it will actually complement the heli-skiing," he said. "The more skiers there are, the more people who might want to take a day heli-skiing. They might come here on vacation and decide short notice to try it."
The resort plans to have a heli pad right in the proposed village, so that guests and residents will be able to literally walk out their front door and go on a heli-skiing adventure.
"I am sure that it is going to be very quickly well known over North America for the biggest verticals" said Schlunegger. "I think Whistler is not quite 5000 vertical and this is going to be 6000 vertical feet - that's major."
Long-term vision
The planning of this development has been a long process that Revelstoke mayor Mark McKee thinks has been beneficial.
"We've looked at developers, at development plans and we've made adjustments over the years," said McKee. "We've learned from the successes of other resorts and the failures of other resorts. We're going to be able to learn from both those successes and failures and I think that we're all-this whole region-going to benefit from that."
McKee also believes that Revelstoke is ready for the changes a $1-billion resort development like this is going to have on the city itself.
"I think it's going to be a slow, steady change that the community will evolve into more of a resort community than it has been," said McKee. "We already experience huge numbers of visitors in the summer and our winter tourism is world class. I think the community has already had a taste of resort development, and what we're doing now is we're just taking it to another level."
Economic catalyst
The multi-phased resort development includes commercial, retail and residential space, with hotels, condominiums, townhomes, single-family lots and a village heli-centre in the plans.
Alan Mason, the manager of community economic development for the City of Revelstoke, is beginning to notice a rise in housing prices.
"As people come in and buy houses, the housing prices go up and then affordability becomes a big issue," Mason said. "One of the stipulations we made in our deal with the ski hill developers was that 10 per cent of all housing that was built had to be employee housing."
Both McKee and Mason stress that the residents of Revelstoke have played a major part in the decision-making process for the resort development.
"This project has been on the book for a long time and the community has come out year after year and meeting after meeting with huge support," said McKee. "It's been one of the things that has really given the development community a lot of ease and comfort."
Mason added, "Generally the community is 95 per cent behind us. Everyone is ecstatic that the resort has gone ahead."
As for the existing businesses in Revelstoke, Mason said they should have little reason to worry.
"What we've tried to do is position the local merchants and retailers so that they can take advantage of the resort," said Mason. "We understand there are going to be new businesses coming in, and that is fine, but we think there will also be opportunities for the local retailers to capitalize as well. I think that it will be a huge boost to the local economy."
Link: www.kootenaybiz.com/revelstoke/newresort.htm
Added on March 14th, 2007
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