Canadian Resort Developer Plans New Village at Winter Park, Colo.

WINTER PARK, Colo. -- Nearly two years after taking control of the Denver-owned Winter Park ski area, Canadian resort developer Intrawest Corp. unveiled plans for a resort village.

The Vancouver company is seeking to build 1,500 new condominiums and 42,000 square feet of commercial space housing 24 shops and restaurants on 180 acres at the base of the 63-year-old ski area. The first phase will cost $70 million.

It has taken this long for Intrawest to find room for its village amid a jumble of entities and owners at Winter Park's base. Denver Water owns chunks of property and most of the water. Railroad tracks and utility easements bisect the parcels, U.S. 40 squeezes the base area into a strip and the Fraser River trickles through.

"This is one of the most difficult villages Intrawest has ever done," said Gary DeFrange, Winter Park's general manager.

Company officials announced their long-awaited plans to a group of almost 100 local residents in an aging slopeside cafeteria. They responded with applause.

Locals heard about a village design that is somewhat different from what Intrawest has developed at its 10 resorts in North America, including Copper Mountain.

Intrawest's model to this point has been some variation of a European ski village. Condominiums have been stacked up to eight stories high on top of ground-floor retail and commercial businesses in a cobblestone pedestrian village.

The proposed Village at Winter Park deviates by largely separating residential and commercial development. The condos will be in buildings separate from the commercial village.

Company officials detailed plans Wednesday for a village that would add to the 24,000 square feet of commercial business already at the ski area, giving it roughly 66,000 total square feet of commercial space. In comparison, Copper Mountain has 177,000 square feet of commercial property.

The new commercial property will be divided into 80 percent locally owned businesses and 20 percent franchise businesses. The company has sketched a 10-year plan that includes 2,000 parking spots at Winter Park and an open-air gondola to ferry visitors to the middle of the pedestrian village. The gondolas are called cabriolets.

The village itself will consist mostly of one-story buildings, angled so they don't block sunshine but do deflect the chilly winds that blow through the valley.

The $70 million first phase will include all the commercial space, two residential buildings with 160 units each and a parking structure with 330 spots. A total of 230 parking spots are coming this year to the Mary Jane base area. The company plans to begin selling the units in 2005, building the village and 320 condos in 2006, and finishing the first phase of development by the 2008-09 season.

The village was zoned several years ago for 1,484 living units and almost 155,000 square feet of commercial space on 80 acres. The new plan increases space for the village by 100 acres but significantly trims the amount of space for shops and restaurants.

More village details include a kids' area with a tubing hill and museum. There also are plans for a deck-lined pond and extensive rehabilitation of the Fraser River, which today is more ditch than river.

Where will Intrawest find the water for 1,500 new homes?

Joe Whitehouse, Intrawest's regional vice president of development, said the company is studying four potential scenarios to secure more water. One is building a reservoir that can trap the area's snowmelt for use year-round.

"The real solution up here is going to end up being storage. We, as a town, are looking at a lot of different options up here for reservoirs," Winter Park Mayor Nick Teverbaugh said.

Local officials must issue final approval for the development once Intrawest secures the necessary water and details the precise location of each building. The first phase of the project fits into existing zoning regulations, which were set in 1996 when Houston-based Hines Resort Development began building the slopeside 230-room Zephyr Lodge.

Intrawest also announced Wednesday that it was planning to buy the ski area's 118-room Vintage Hotel from the Utah-based Alta Hotel Group in an undisclosed deal and convert it into employee housing. The idea is to keep employees in the village.

"They will, trust me, animate the village," said David Barry, the Intrawest executive who turned the former Club Med building at Copper Mountain into a massive, multicultural employee bunkhouse.