Larger Vermont Resorts Seek To Broaden Appeal With Destinati
Posted: May 6th, '08, 13:10
Larger Vermont Resorts Seek To Broaden Appeal With Destination Villages
Published April 7, 2008
BY KAREN D. LORENTZ
http://vermonttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... /149645599
Vermont’s Village Variety, Impacts
Pico Mountain, Ascutney Mountain , Sugarbush and Bolton Valley are among the ski areas with smaller base-area villages that offer amenities like Nordic centers, golf courses, or sports centers. Stratton and Smugglers’ Notch offer more complete and mature villages with successful summer businesses due to a plethora of activities for all ages. Okemo and Stowe have larger villages under way while Killington and Burke are the latest entries with major master plans that have yet to garner Act 250 approvals.
Construction of planned residential units include 1,500 at Killington; 1,200 at Jay Peak; 850 at Burke; 400 at Stowe; 142 at Okemo; and 200 at Bear Creek Mountain Club. Other areas with future-phase potential include: Ascutney (600 units), Stratton, Sugarbush and Smugglers’ Notch. (The Haystack Club was started as a private area in 2006 with plans for 450 units but the developer stopped the project in 2007.)
The impact of such destination-resort development is not insignificant, Riehle noted. Vermont’s ski industry currently employs some 12,000 workers and contributes $1.5 billion to Vermont’s economy. It spends $300 million a year with 2,800 Vermont companies, which includes construction-related companies as well as suppliers of food, fuel, and all manner of goods and services which are needed for operations. An estimated $125 million was spent by ski areas and private developers on slopeside real estate projects in 2007 alone, and this was a year when development slowed.
Killington’s New Plans
Killington is one of the last ski resorts in the state to develop a true destination-resort village. Despite the announcement of plans to create a year-round resort village in 1967 (with a 44-acre commercial core) and an updated 1968 plan for a 400-acre resort village, plus the pursuit of summer activities (tennis center, etcetera) into the following decades, the original ski company built just three residential projects from 1968 to 1978. These included 40 Edgemont condominiums, The Villager hotel, and 72 Whiffletree units.
The next ski-company development came under ASC ownership in 2002 with the debut of the Grand Summit Hotel (site of the former Villager) as part of ASC’s new Killington Village master plan.
The commercial center never was developed under either of the first two owners, although the Mountain Inn (built in 1978) and several condominium complexes were built by independent developers in the 400-acre planned unit development (PUD). Today that PUD sports a total of 1,087 residential units, including the Killington Grand Hotel, the Mountain Inn, and eight condominium complexes.
ASC also swapped its Parkers Gore land with the state, thereby gaining additional land on which to locate a less cramped village and a second, 408-acre PUD.
Currently, SP Land Company, which acquired 213 acres at Killington from ASC in May of 2004 (plus 256 acres at Bear Mountain) and is now acquiring another 90 acres in the Village area as a result of the May 2007 resort acquisition, is pursuing four-year extensions of the two PUDs. If townspeople approve the PUD extensions, which currently expire in September of 2008, Steve Selbo, president of SP Land Company, said he will finish his Act 250 proposal (various feasibility studies remain to be completed on the revised plan) and proceed to submit Phase One to the Act 250 process.
In a recent informational meeting with townspeople, Selbo laid out preliminary plans for Phase I of the proposed Killington Village. This is an update to his predecessor’s master plan, which has been on the drawing board since the late 1990s. At that time, townspeople gave input to ASC as to what they would like to see for a village.
“We have worked hard with Hart Howerton, an architectural firm with land-planning offices in Boston and architectural offices in New York, to keep the master plan consistent with the plan the townspeople approved in the late 1990s,” Selbo said.
The plan includes the commercial center of Killington Village at Snowshed, which will have residential units, retail space for shops and restaurants, multi-use outdoor gathering areas, a Meeting House, a new Skier Services facility, and a Transit Center for shuttle bus and skier drop-offs. The Village plan also includes the relocation of the Killington Road.
“Conceptually, the plan calls for 1,708 residential units in the 408-acre PUD and 231 units in the 400-acre PUD for a conceptual total of 1,935 units. That is significantly less than the maximum 5,000 units previously approved for the two PUDs,” Selbo noted.The residential units would be a mix of condos, duplexes, hotel rooms, and private homes. With eight parcels of land on which to build the various units, Selbo said future phases could see construction of residences in the Snowdon area, alongside Yodeler on Snowshed, along the opposite (wooded) side of Snowshed, and in the vicinity of the Pro Shop and golf course as well as in the first-phase locations at Snowshed and Ramshead.
Selbo added that prior PUD approvals require a certain amount of retail space to be built, with 50 square feet of retail for each residential unit mandated. Thus, Phase One calls for 30,000 square feet of commercial space along Main Street, which is the center of the new village, along with 157 residential units. An additional 42 units would also be built as part of Phase One at Ramshead, consisting of 24 duplexes (12 buildings) and 18 lots for single-family homes.
Phase One also includes the relocation of part of the Killington Road and a portion of the existing parking lots so that a new state-of-the-art day Skier Services facility (replacing the two existing Snowshed and Ramshead base lodges) can be constructed along with a skier bridge over a newly relocated section of Killington Road.
Selbo said the various phases could take 15 to 20 years to complete. Saying it is impossible to predict when construction could start, he noted it could take years just to get through the Act 250 process. “Even if permit approvals are gained, there is still infrastructure work on roads, utilities, water and sewer that has to be done before any construction or sale of lots can take place.”
Progress on that front includes work done by HDR, Inc., an engineering firm with offices in Boston. “They have reviewed the revised master plan, and Pioneer, a local Vermont firm, has tested for existing conditions like wetlands and streams giving us areas to avoid with our planned development” on the proposed Phase One development areas, Selbo said,
Doug Wright, an architect for Hart Howerton, said that they looked at New England towns and surrounding countrysides to get a sense of styles, materials, and features for the Village. The design centers around a Town Green and Main Street. The Village will have lots of “right-sized buildings that actually look like several buildings joined together,” due to their different materials and colors, he explained. Several buildings will have retail space on the ground floor with residential units above.
Wright said the Skier Services Lodge will be “an iconic building done in the grand-lodge style” found in early New England vacation destinations like the Mount Washington Hotel. It will house the ski school, children’s center, restaurants, ski rentals, and other skier services and be located between the existing Snowshed and Ramshead base lodges.
Selbo explained that the Meeting House, which would be built on the Green as part of Phase Three, would serve as a multi-purpose town hall and theater which could also hold functions like weddings and conferences. He said swimming pools are planned for various residential complexes in the Village and a club/fitness facility could be built in the vicinity of the golf course.
“SP Land will end up owning two tracts of land at Pico this spring, but there are currently no plans to move forward with new development there. Additional single-family lots could possibly be developed with ski-in/ski-out access to the mountain at some time in the future, again with no specific plans at this time,” Selbo stated.
Published April 7, 2008
BY KAREN D. LORENTZ
http://vermonttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a ... /149645599
Vermont’s Village Variety, Impacts
Pico Mountain, Ascutney Mountain , Sugarbush and Bolton Valley are among the ski areas with smaller base-area villages that offer amenities like Nordic centers, golf courses, or sports centers. Stratton and Smugglers’ Notch offer more complete and mature villages with successful summer businesses due to a plethora of activities for all ages. Okemo and Stowe have larger villages under way while Killington and Burke are the latest entries with major master plans that have yet to garner Act 250 approvals.
Construction of planned residential units include 1,500 at Killington; 1,200 at Jay Peak; 850 at Burke; 400 at Stowe; 142 at Okemo; and 200 at Bear Creek Mountain Club. Other areas with future-phase potential include: Ascutney (600 units), Stratton, Sugarbush and Smugglers’ Notch. (The Haystack Club was started as a private area in 2006 with plans for 450 units but the developer stopped the project in 2007.)
The impact of such destination-resort development is not insignificant, Riehle noted. Vermont’s ski industry currently employs some 12,000 workers and contributes $1.5 billion to Vermont’s economy. It spends $300 million a year with 2,800 Vermont companies, which includes construction-related companies as well as suppliers of food, fuel, and all manner of goods and services which are needed for operations. An estimated $125 million was spent by ski areas and private developers on slopeside real estate projects in 2007 alone, and this was a year when development slowed.
Killington’s New Plans
Killington is one of the last ski resorts in the state to develop a true destination-resort village. Despite the announcement of plans to create a year-round resort village in 1967 (with a 44-acre commercial core) and an updated 1968 plan for a 400-acre resort village, plus the pursuit of summer activities (tennis center, etcetera) into the following decades, the original ski company built just three residential projects from 1968 to 1978. These included 40 Edgemont condominiums, The Villager hotel, and 72 Whiffletree units.
The next ski-company development came under ASC ownership in 2002 with the debut of the Grand Summit Hotel (site of the former Villager) as part of ASC’s new Killington Village master plan.
The commercial center never was developed under either of the first two owners, although the Mountain Inn (built in 1978) and several condominium complexes were built by independent developers in the 400-acre planned unit development (PUD). Today that PUD sports a total of 1,087 residential units, including the Killington Grand Hotel, the Mountain Inn, and eight condominium complexes.
ASC also swapped its Parkers Gore land with the state, thereby gaining additional land on which to locate a less cramped village and a second, 408-acre PUD.
Currently, SP Land Company, which acquired 213 acres at Killington from ASC in May of 2004 (plus 256 acres at Bear Mountain) and is now acquiring another 90 acres in the Village area as a result of the May 2007 resort acquisition, is pursuing four-year extensions of the two PUDs. If townspeople approve the PUD extensions, which currently expire in September of 2008, Steve Selbo, president of SP Land Company, said he will finish his Act 250 proposal (various feasibility studies remain to be completed on the revised plan) and proceed to submit Phase One to the Act 250 process.
In a recent informational meeting with townspeople, Selbo laid out preliminary plans for Phase I of the proposed Killington Village. This is an update to his predecessor’s master plan, which has been on the drawing board since the late 1990s. At that time, townspeople gave input to ASC as to what they would like to see for a village.
“We have worked hard with Hart Howerton, an architectural firm with land-planning offices in Boston and architectural offices in New York, to keep the master plan consistent with the plan the townspeople approved in the late 1990s,” Selbo said.
The plan includes the commercial center of Killington Village at Snowshed, which will have residential units, retail space for shops and restaurants, multi-use outdoor gathering areas, a Meeting House, a new Skier Services facility, and a Transit Center for shuttle bus and skier drop-offs. The Village plan also includes the relocation of the Killington Road.
“Conceptually, the plan calls for 1,708 residential units in the 408-acre PUD and 231 units in the 400-acre PUD for a conceptual total of 1,935 units. That is significantly less than the maximum 5,000 units previously approved for the two PUDs,” Selbo noted.The residential units would be a mix of condos, duplexes, hotel rooms, and private homes. With eight parcels of land on which to build the various units, Selbo said future phases could see construction of residences in the Snowdon area, alongside Yodeler on Snowshed, along the opposite (wooded) side of Snowshed, and in the vicinity of the Pro Shop and golf course as well as in the first-phase locations at Snowshed and Ramshead.
Selbo added that prior PUD approvals require a certain amount of retail space to be built, with 50 square feet of retail for each residential unit mandated. Thus, Phase One calls for 30,000 square feet of commercial space along Main Street, which is the center of the new village, along with 157 residential units. An additional 42 units would also be built as part of Phase One at Ramshead, consisting of 24 duplexes (12 buildings) and 18 lots for single-family homes.
Phase One also includes the relocation of part of the Killington Road and a portion of the existing parking lots so that a new state-of-the-art day Skier Services facility (replacing the two existing Snowshed and Ramshead base lodges) can be constructed along with a skier bridge over a newly relocated section of Killington Road.
Selbo said the various phases could take 15 to 20 years to complete. Saying it is impossible to predict when construction could start, he noted it could take years just to get through the Act 250 process. “Even if permit approvals are gained, there is still infrastructure work on roads, utilities, water and sewer that has to be done before any construction or sale of lots can take place.”
Progress on that front includes work done by HDR, Inc., an engineering firm with offices in Boston. “They have reviewed the revised master plan, and Pioneer, a local Vermont firm, has tested for existing conditions like wetlands and streams giving us areas to avoid with our planned development” on the proposed Phase One development areas, Selbo said,
Doug Wright, an architect for Hart Howerton, said that they looked at New England towns and surrounding countrysides to get a sense of styles, materials, and features for the Village. The design centers around a Town Green and Main Street. The Village will have lots of “right-sized buildings that actually look like several buildings joined together,” due to their different materials and colors, he explained. Several buildings will have retail space on the ground floor with residential units above.
Wright said the Skier Services Lodge will be “an iconic building done in the grand-lodge style” found in early New England vacation destinations like the Mount Washington Hotel. It will house the ski school, children’s center, restaurants, ski rentals, and other skier services and be located between the existing Snowshed and Ramshead base lodges.
Selbo explained that the Meeting House, which would be built on the Green as part of Phase Three, would serve as a multi-purpose town hall and theater which could also hold functions like weddings and conferences. He said swimming pools are planned for various residential complexes in the Village and a club/fitness facility could be built in the vicinity of the golf course.
“SP Land will end up owning two tracts of land at Pico this spring, but there are currently no plans to move forward with new development there. Additional single-family lots could possibly be developed with ski-in/ski-out access to the mountain at some time in the future, again with no specific plans at this time,” Selbo stated.