Nov. 8--While other resorts and mountain developers are tightening their belts with a wary eye toward the ever-softening economy, Canada's Intrawest is charging forward. 

The resort developer is vying for development opportunities at Winter Park, planning a $250 million village at Snowmass Village, and throwing a billion dollars into each of its ski resorts in Mammoth, Calif., and Tremblant, Quebec, Canada. 

And just as it reaches the end of its half-billion-dollar renovation of Copper Mountain, Intrawest on Wednesday unveiled a massive new village-building project at the 480-acre base of the ski hill it bought four years ago. 

"In a slightly slower economy, what you tend to do is get into longer-term planning," said Paul Stashick, Intrawest's vice president of real estate development, describing his company's shift from condominium and hotel development at Copper to more infrastructure improvements and community-type amenities. 

The 15-to-20-year plan discussed Wednesday included plenty of Intrawest's patented lingo. "Layers of attraction and animation" are used to describe things like light shows, the new rock-climbing wall, storytelling hour and the custom lights and door handles sprinkled throughout the new village. The new master plan for Copper's base area is a "comprehensive development strategy." Planning anything new is "envisioning." 

Intrawest owns and operates 11 resorts, including a beach resort in Florida. It's developing six villages at resorts it does not own, including Keystone. And it's developing an entire golf community in Silverthorne. 

The 25-year-old company has four waves of development for its projects, ranging from "diamond-in-the-rough" day resorts it just acquired cheaply, to mega-resorts like its Whistler/Blackcomb, which has evolved from a remote ski hill to North America's largest and busiest ski resort. 

Copper Mountain is just finishing its first phase of Intrawest development, emerging as a destination resort after significant capital investment and becoming a vibrant year-round community. 

The details of Copper's planned evolution from day-tripper playground to a full-blown destination resort with year-round occupancy were revealed Wednesday. 

The plan includes a gondola system designed to ferry visitors across the mountain's base area, a new resort entrance and a new church. There are also plans for a 70,000-square-foot performance center and recording studio, 230 units for employees, 1,100 new homes in various forms and an elaborate network of trails connecting the base with the Colorado Trail. 

The performance center, which will be owned and operated by Denver's Peak Entertainment, could break ground in the next six months, and construction on the gondola and a road realignment could begin in as soon as a year. 

"Like anything else, we need to continue to improve ourselves to make ourselves more competitive in the marketplace," said Scott Chomiak, director of development at Copper. "It's important to always be looking forward to make Copper a sustainable and desirable four-season resort." 

Intrawest developers declined to offer a specific amount being budgeted for the latest phase of development at Copper. 

The company, which does not break ground on a new project until half of the planned units have been sold, is not abandoning its tried-and-true real estate selling. It is still selling 27 single-family lots, townhomes and fractional-ownership units. Copper's developer also has reined in plans for a new condo/hotel complex, a decision that came down a year ago when the first signs of a softening economy became apparent, Stashick said. 

"Not everyone has the capital and expertise to do this type of planning and change plans to move in sync with the market," said Stashick, noting Intrawest's ability to make changes mid-stride because it is the sole developer of Copper. "In these types of economic times, it's best to move around a bit, sell at different price points. We definitely haven't slowed down. We are pretty bullish on the market, and we are certainly bullish on Copper Mountain." 

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