Like British Columbia's best-known ski destination, Revelstoke Mountain Resort will boast world-class, all-season recreation, a village centre and mushrooming real estate values in the surrounding area.
But its proponents insist this is not another Whistler.
This Saturday, the revamped ski hill, part of a $1-billion development near the town of Revelstoke in the Columbia-Shuswap region of southeastern B.C., is scheduled to open for business. A $22-million, eight-seat gondola and a high-speed, four-seat chairlift will begin ferrying skiers up the slopes of Mount Mackenzie.
It will signal the beginning of an ambitious redevelopment of the former municipally owned, single-lift, bunny hill, which catered largely to children of the nearby town. But Revelstoke's reputation as a ski destination already extends far beyond this, as it has been well loved, particularly by European helicopter skiers for 30 years. Now, its developers are aiming to fill the gap between the beginners and the elite of the sport.
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Eventually, Revelstoke Mountain Resort LP will count more than 20 lifts and 100 ski and snowboard runs. Next year, additional gondolas and chairlifts are scheduled to be added, boosting the hill's lift-serviced vertical reach to a North American high of 1,830 metres. That compares with 1,530 metres at Whistler Mountain.
The four-season village will be built out over the next 15 years, promising 1,500 resort condominiums, 2,000 hotel suites, 850 townhouses and 550 single-family lots. It will also include 500,000 square feet of commercial and retail space and a golf course.
But aside from great skiing and golfing, this will not be like Whistler, the Olympic-branded resort, which is its own raison d'être, according to Revelstoke's general manager.
"We are a resort community, but we also have the [town]," Paul Skelton says. "We want the people in Revelstoke to prosper as well."
The town of 8,500, six kilometres northwest of the resort, already has full amenities, including supermarkets, movie theatres and hockey rinks. The retail component of the resort's village, Mr. Skelton promises, will add to that mix, offering necessities, such as hardware, and specialty shops, such as wine. It has been planned to cater to local residents and will be less reliant on the T-shirt and designer jeans market that appeals to the tourist crowd, he says.
There will also be a family-oriented atmosphere in the village restaurants, rather than the party-central reputation of Whistler with its packed nightclubs and youth-centred scene, says Mr. Skelton, who spent about two decades working for Intrawest Corp. on the operation and development of Whistler Mountain before joining the Revelstoke development.
While Whistler draws heavily from Vancouver, Revelstoke is roughly halfway between Vancouver and Calgary, making it largely a "destination" resort.
But well-heeled heli-skiers and cat-skiers have had no problem making the somewhat awkward trip in order to enjoy Revelstoke's world-renowned powder. More than 8,000 of these niche skiers flock to the area every year to experience the dusty snow and varied alpine terrain of the Selkirk, Monashee and Purcell mountains there.
The resort's developers, whose principals include Don Simpson, chairman of Denver-based Grand Peaks Property, Hunter Milborne of Toronto-based Milborne Realty Inc. and Toronto developer Robert Powadiuk, are banking on this market. They recently acquired Selkirk Tangiers Helicopter Skiing LLP and CAT Powder Skiing to help transport skiers to the backcountry.
Such a significant addition in population and activity might be expected to stir up anxiety in the town, but the locals are overwhelmingly welcoming, according to Revelstoke Mayor Mark McKee. "We're fortunate that we're larger than a lot of other ski resorts when they had their start, like Vail or Whistler. We were a real community before the ski resort and we'll always be. This is just adding another economic leg to our stool."
Many B.C. Interior towns are looking to tourism to decrease their reliance on the boom-and-bust forest industry. The Revelstoke area has escaped the devastation caused by the mountain pine beetle, thanks to the scarcity in this region of the bug's preferred tree species. It also has a relatively diverse economy and a recent history of self-sufficiency, thanks to its community-owned forestry and energy corporations, models that have been imitated by other towns.
Since the municipality began negotiating with the resort developers in 2004, local support has been high, according to Mr. McKee. The town expanded its boundaries to include the resort, and the resort took the town's name.
"I think that speaks volumes about the relationship we have with each other," he says. "They see us as good marketing, and we are because we've got a great town ... We want them to be part of the community but everything doesn't revolve around the resort."
The developers went the extra mile, Mr. McKee says, with a commitment to environmental sensitivity in areas such as streamside protection, building practices, sewage treatment and golf course design.
The keen interest in British Columbia's residential real estate has fuelled the unprecedented investment in ski resort development, says Bob Falle, head of the tourism and hospitality program at Selkirk College in Nelson, B.C. A residential base makes a larger ski operation more viable.
While several of the province's 44 alpine resorts are in expansion mode, he singles out Silver Star Resort near Vernon, Big White Ski Resort near Kelowna and Sun Peaks near Kamloops, each of which have had millions of dollars invested to improve their ski operations and develop villages of condominiums, townhouses and single-family homes.
The best thing Revelstoke has on its side, Mr. Falle says, is the consistent quality of the snow, with none of the coastal wet snow that afflicts the bottom of Whistler. "I don't know that Revelstoke will be at the same scale [as Whistler] for village shopping and retail, but it will certainly be a better mountain ski experience from peak to valley."
The flipside of all this speculation, however, is a labour market shortage almost sure to hit the rapidly growing tourism industry soon. Mr. Falle's grads, particularly of the ski resort operations and management program, are enjoying their pick of jobs. But several have chosen to go elsewhere when they look at the cost of living in British Columbia.
According to a report prepared for Kootenay Rockies Tourism, factors including an aging work force, a declining youth population and competition from oil-rich Alberta and other sectors, such as construction and mining, will contribute to a 20 per cent or more deficit in employers' manpower needs by 2015.
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