Resort Goes To Town Schweitzer Tries To Take A Step Up With Construction Of Slopeside Homes
Heated driveways. Windows etched with local art. Glass-enclosed steam showers run by computers.
Those are just some of the jet-set amenities in the latest townhomes dotting the slopes of Schweitzer Mountain Resort.
The townhomes, which sell for up to $425,000, are an invitation to wealthy skiers who scan the globe in search of the purest powder and priciest places for leisure, so-called “destination skiers.”
To make the transition from popular local skier haven to destination resort, Schweitzer will continue adding luxury townhomes and villas to its slopes.
The Glades. The Cabins. The Peaks. These haughty sounding lodges are priced out of most local skiers’ range, though a few Spokanites and one North Idaho buyer have purchased units, said Gretchen Piper of Schweitzer Mountain Real Estate.
“Destination skiers won’t come unless they can stay slopeside,” said Tim Hinderman, vice president for development at Schweitzer and keeper of the constantly evolving master plan.
But local skiers need not fear that the resort will exclusively court destination skiers, Hinderman said. Schweitzer’s master plan aims to please both.
The resort’s ski terrain is as good as any in the region; good enough to already draw a fair number of destination skiers. But Schweitzer has a long way to go before reaching the resort destination status of Aspen or Lake Tahoe - or even Big Sky Mountain in Big Sky, Mont.
With 21 years of growth behind it, Big Sky has established itself as a premier destination resort in the northern Rockies.
About 60 percent of Big Sky’s visitors are destination skiers, said Glenniss Indreland, advertising coordinator for the popular resort. With the opening of a large tram system and four new lifts this year, Big Sky’s 3,500 acres of skiable terrain will be the most of any resort in North America, she said.
Since 1989, Schweitzer has massaged a master plan to try to move into Big Sky’s league.
At the center of Schweitzer’s expansion plans lies a cluster of shops and services that would rise just below the Green Gables Lodge on the mountain.
Tighter lending conditions have set the Schweitzer Village development back some, Hinderman said.
“This is a very market-driven kind of venture,” he said. “But I think it will be like dominos - once the first building goes in the village, the rest will quickly fall into place.”
Developments like ski resorts can be risky investments for banks, said skiing consultant Ted Beeler of the Bellevue office of Sno.engineering, a resort consulting firm headquartered in New Hampshire.
“Ski resorts are extremely sensitive to weather, even more than economic factors,” said Beeler, who consults for ski resorts around North America. “So that makes any new development, commercial or lodging, very much market-driven.”
More townhomes like The Glades will support the commercial development of Schweitzer Village. More lodging will make putting restaurants and shops next to them even more attractive, Hinderman said.
Big Sky has two developed villages, one at the bottom of the ski hill called the Mountain Village and one about nine miles away called the Meadow Village.
Together, they provide the rooms for 7,500 skiers, compared with Schweitzer’s 2,300 maximum capacity, a rate that assumes every bed in every room would be used. Under the full master plan, Schweitzer would be able to pack 9,000 skiers on the mountain. But unlike Big Sky, Schweitzer sees a finite end to development in its basin.
“We don’t want to keep growing forever,” Hinderman said. “We want to maintain the quality of the experience here.”
Sandpoint will remain an integral part of that quality experience, Hinderman said.
“They need us, and we need them,” he said. Some in Sandpoint’s tourism community fear that once Schweitzer’s village is finished, all visitor services will be self-contained on the mountain, lessening the need for Sandpoint hotels and restaurants.
Hinderman sees both the resort and the town growing together. While the new lodging and single-family homes being built around the basin are geared toward destination skiers, Hinderman sees Sandpoint providing crucial guest space for day skiers.
Big Sky and Schweitzer share a most unique development situation because they’re both on private land. Nearly all major ski areas in the Rockies are on U.S. Forest Service or other government land, making expansion and even building roads far more complicated.
Unlike many other resorts, Schweitzer has the luxury of building townhomes and an alpine village just a few snowplow steps from all its major lifts. When completed, skiers will be able to glide from one side of the basin to the other.
“Resorts want to provide as much ski-in and ski-out access as they can,” Beeler said. “It helps enhance the value of the property considerably.”
As Schweitzer planners looked around the West for ideas from other resorts, Piper and Hinderman said there wasn’t one single place they wanted Schweitzer to emulate.
“We saw a lot of little things that we wanted to do in most every place we looked at,” Piper said. “But there’s not one that we wanted to copy. We want Schweitzer to have its own feeling.”
Coming from a marketing job in Vail, Colo., herself, Piper doesn’t envision Schweitzer headed down that same path. “No way. I just don’t see it.”
Still, signs of destination heavyweights Vail and Aspen dot Schweitzer. The architect firm Zehren & Associates based near Vail has done substantial work for Schweitzer Village and The Cabins.
Builders from Telluride in Colorado have expressed interest in designing the single-family homes in the Woodlands development set to begin building next year, Piper said.
Recently hired general manager Curt Stewart came from several years of working for Aspen Ski Corp. Stewart’s goals when starting last September included preventing the “corporatization” that has infected other resorts from poisoning Schweitzer.
Schweitzer’s big challenge remains to keep its cozy atmosphere as more skiers pack the powder. Hinderman acknowledges that, as growth continues, the mountain will change.
“If you’re wanting to be the only skier on the mountain on a Tuesday afternoon, that’s just not going to happen down the road,” he said. “We can’t be all things to all people, and we don’t want to be.”
The ideal mix would be half destination skiers and half local skiers, he said. And while construction workers furiously work to build upscale accommodations in Schweitzer’s short building season, Hinderman wants local skiers to know they’ll never be left out at Schweitzer.
“We’re not going to put them in the cheap seats,” he said. New parking facilities being built lower down the mountain will provide an easier, quicker way for day skiers to make it to the mountain. A lift will be extended down to these parking lots to bring skiers up to the day lodge.
The resort’s transition to a worldclass destination ski basin won’t happen overnight, but Hinderman expects that his entire master plan will be reality within a decade, tops.
Out-of-state buyers have shown the most interest, Piper said.
Pittsburgh designer Chip Kamin brought the Glades concept to Schweitzer’s slopes, and brought Pittsburgh investors with him to buy units. Out-of-state owners will spread Schweitzer’s reputation and pique interest in future developments.
The Cabins, with four of 17 rustic units already sold, are just scraped dirt sites at this point; the Peaks are only spectacular color renderings. But they will be the bellwether of transition for Schweitzer.
The Woodlands, a set of single-family homes carved into the side of Schweitzer Basin, will start the major home development that will eventually ring the basin.
“Destination skiers are looking for higher end overnight accommodations and single-family dwellings,” consultant Beeler said. “What you see today vs. what was built in the early 1970s are much larger units with far more accouterments and much more detail and fine quality.”
For Hinderman, Schweitzer’s growth remains a dynamic process that seems to change a little each day.
“We’re not trying to be the Rolls Royce of ski resorts,” he said. “We’re trying to create a good value that has been tastefully designed.”
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