Aug. 7, 2003  - SUN VALLEY, Idaho--The long-awaited unveiling of a long-range master plan for the expected expansion of Sun Valley Resort is set for Wednesday at a town hall-style meeting hosted by the Sun Valley City Council.

The resort's future and its successful operation are vital to the city of Sun Valley: Fully $1 million of the city's current $5 million operating budget involves tax revenues generated by the resort and various businesses at its mall. The resort also creates for Sun Valley a world-class image as a premiere destination resort and vacation community.

Speculation for years has centered on Sun Valley Co. possibly building a new hotel as well as condominiums on land owned by the resort to make up for a growing shortage of hotel accommodations in the area.

To be held in the glittering high-tech, remodeled Limelight Room of Sun Valley Inn, the Wednesday session begins at 6:30 p.m., with the Sun Valley Co.'s segment scheduled for about 7:45 p.m., according to Sun Valley Mayor Dave Wilson.

Various city officials will lead off with reports of their departments' activities during the past year. A brief discussion will be devoted to the future of five city-owned acres on Sun Valley Road that a citizens coalition attempted unsuccessfully to develop as an arts and culture campus.

But the resort's proposed master plan will be the highlight of the annual town hall meeting.

Wilson said the presentation will be made by Design Workshop of Aspen, Colo., the resort's planning and design firm. Sun Valley Co. general manager Wally Huffman also will attend, but Wilson said he doesn't know whether resort owner Earl Holding will attend. Holding has been recovering from a stroke that left him partially paralyzed.

The mayor has seen some of the plan, he said, but declined to reveal the contents.

The Sun Valley and Ketchum area has lost some 300 hotel rooms over the past several years with the closing of the Elkhorn Resort to make way for new condos; razing of the downtown Ketchum Christiania Lodge for development of the Colonnade shops; plus conversion of several small motels to long-term rentals.

At various times during City Council meetings over the years, city officials have indicated that a substantial expansion of the resort's facilities would affect city services, while also adding tax revenues to the city's coffers.

The Sun Valley Resort has been engaged in a spurt of remodeling of its aging facilities this year to attract new convention bookings as well as preserve repeat business of longtime annual bookings such as Allen & Co., which invites more than 200 of the world's most influential media tycoons and their families each July for a week of serious business sessions and recreation.

Sun Valley Co., wholly owned by Holding's privately held Sinclair Oil, declines to name the value of recent facelift projects. But the cost of expanding and remodeling the large Limelight Room convention center with custom woodwork, imported English carpets, Italian chandeliers and high-tech audiovisual systems; air conditioning and remodeling the inn's more than 100 rooms; and extensive landscaping of the grounds obviously is in the millions of dollars.

Holding also owns the four hotels of the Little America chain, the Westgate Hotel in San Diego, the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City and the Olympic-venue Snowbasin ski resort in Utah.

One estimate is that Holding invested as much on Sun Valley remodeling as he spent for purchase of the resort along with leases of Mount Bald from onetime Olympic skier Bill Janss in the mid-1970s -- some $12 million. The Sun Valley Lodge was built in 1936 by the Union Pacific railroad, then headed by financier-diplomat Averell Harriman who set out to create from scratch a ski resort with an international reputation and celebrity clientele.

The resort owns an estimated 2,600 acres and leases another 2,054 on Mount Bald from the U.S. Forest Service. During winter it has 1,000 employees, and between 70 and 800 during summer, according to marketing director Jack Sibbach.

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(c) 2003, The Times-News, Twin Falls, Idaho. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.