The New Vail

Work Progresses at Two Popular Vail Resorts: LionsHead Core and Vail's Front Door

By Sheila Bacon

A hotel, several residences, plenty of new parking and a restaurant are just a few of the additions LionsHead and Vail Village will see over the next few years.

Rendering by 42|40 Architecture

Skiers frequenting Vail's slopes this year will see the beginnings of multi-million dollar renovations at two of the resort's villages.

A new skiers' bridge across Gore Creek is the first part of a multi-phased project at LionsHead that will transform the contemporary, 1970s-era village into a Bavarian-themed resort; mirroring the architecture already in place at nearby Vail Village.

At Vail Village, an elaborate, below-grade parking structure will open in mid-February, providing much-needed parking for owners of nearby townhomes and condominiums. Part of the Vail's Front Door project, the underground garage will join a recently completed surface lot for use by guests of the nearby hotel, and a landscaped park atop the underground parking will be complete by this spring.

The bridge and the parking structure represent just a fraction of the new construction that has skiers and residents rubbing their mittens together in anticipation. Together, the initial phases of the LionsHead Core Redevelopment and Vail's Front Door projects are valued at more than $150 million.

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Lots New at LionsHead

The largest of LionsHead's new projects will be the ArraBelle at Vail Square - a 530,000-sq-ft, mixed-use project at the heart of the village. Construction will begin this spring with the demolition of the existing gondola and Sunbird Lodge. The new development will feature a luxury hotel with 6,500 sq ft of meeting space, a spa with 13 treatment rooms, 70 condominium residences, a restaurant, 300 underground parking spaces, an eight-bay loading dock, 30,000 sq ft of skier services and 35,000 sq ft of retail.

Other LionsHead projects soon to start include 16 new residences in a duplex configuration along Gore Creek, four single-family homes at the former site of the unused tennis courts, and new Vail Associates office space, employee housing and underground parking at the current site of the north day lot.

In keeping with the practice of relocating parking areas underground, a tunnel will lead to below-grade parking garages for the duplexes. Eliminating vehicles from surface roads not only enhances the aesthetics of the housing development, said Peter Monroe, principal with Denver and Avon's Monroe & Newell Engineers, but also improves the view from adjacent properties. Engineers are working closely with precast suppliers in a design-build scenario to design the underground tunnel and parking structure.

The new construction will be built using European-style architecture in an attempt to integrate LionsHead with the Bavarian-themed Vail Village.

"The idea of the core area is to make both villages feel like one place," said Robert Fitzgerald, senior associate with 42/40 Architecture, the Denver architecture firm designing both redevelopments.

Members of the design team joined representatives from the projects' owner, Vail Resorts Development Co., on a trip to Austria to research authentic Bavarian architecture.

Tours of Innsbruck, Salzburg and other towns found structures that appear to have been built over a period of time. That idea was brought back to the drawing board, resulting in a mixed-use project with varying roof conditions, multi-colored facades and areas of the building with varying heights.

The architecture firm's services have been made available to owners of surrounding businesses to encourage renovation within the Bavarian theme. Already, 11 business owners have taken advantage of 42/40's design services to update their businesses' appearances, Fitzgerald said.

Turning it Around at Vail Village

At Vail Village, the "Front Door" project seeks to create a welcoming entryway to the resort. With parking lots and back-door loading docks currently greeting skiers as they approach the village, the redevelopment will literally reposition the gateway into the area. Construction will start in spring 2006.

"It currently has a back-of-house feel to it," said Fitzgerald. "This will turn it around and make it look like a true, world-class resort should look."

This will be accomplished in several ways; first by moving an existing surface parking lot underground and topping it with a landscaped park. Also, an underground loading and delivery system with 14 delivery bays will be available for use by all the merchants in Vail Village, eliminating the noise and congestion associated with above-ground deliveries. The new system allows vehicles to drop off loads underground; then carriers will deliver goods to individual businesses on foot with the use of hand trucks.

The current hodge-podge of skier facility structures at the base of the mountain will be replaced by a 1,500-sq-ft facility that will feature lift ticket sales, ski school offices, a ski rental shop, lockers, public restrooms and a coffee shop.

"The goal is to create a front-door image where the town and ski mountain meet," said Jack Hunn, vice president of design, construction and development for Vail Resorts Development Co.

Other Vail Village projects will include 13 residential units - each selling for around $8 million - built into the hillside and overlooking the Gore Range. The residential aspect will help pay for the village's redevelopment, Hunn said, and "improve the interface between the town and the mountain."

Already Under Way

The jobs already completed or nearing completion - the new skier bridge at LionsHead and the new underground parking garage at Vail Village - feature a number of unique aspects; setting the stage for the new developments to come.

The 40-ft-wide skier bridge that links the mountain to the town of Vail across Gore Creek replaces a 20-ft-wide span. The new steel truss and wood structure - appropriate for use by skiers in the winters and bicyclists in the summer - also offers a dedicated pedestrian lane. The bridge put the project team on a fast-track - the entire job was designed and built in less than 10 months.

The site of Vail Village's underground Founders Garage - called the P3 and J Parking Structure before it was formally named - challenged the design and construction team with its high water table. An aggressive dewatering program was required to tame the site water - located just 10 ft below the surface.

As crews excavated nearly 40 ft below grade, 50 temporary wells pumped 2,200 gal. of water per minute from the site. A permanent water control system includes a series of pumps and holding tanks. Generators support the pumps in the event of a power outage, and a complex alarm system activates if the water levels in the holding tanks rise above acceptable levels.

The zero-lot line site is surrounded on four sides by existing roads and structures, requiring contractor Hyder Construction of Denver to schedule just-in-time deliveries and utilize a staging area a half-mile from the project site, according to project executive Doug Thompson.

Stringent requirements imposed by the city limited when and how often streets could be closed for concrete pours. Crews worked a 58-hour work week, Thompson said, slowing or stopping work only to accommodate holiday celebrations and crowds.

Tiebacks for the garage's pile and lagging shoring system extended well beyond the zero-lot line, requiring exhaustive negotiations for easements with public and private landowners. Harsh winter weather complicated deck pours, requiring tenting and snow blankets to keep snow off the curing concrete.

To lessen the structural requirements of the garage - which must carry the load of the Founders Park above it - a series of 12- to 16-ft foam blocks were placed atop the concrete structural lids, which were then topped with two to three ft of dirt. The load-lightening system saves money, said Monroe, and will be used on other projects throughout the new developments to build back slopes and hillsides where excavation has occurred.

Shaw Construction of Denver is the construction manager/general contractor for the upcoming work at LionsHead. Crews have been involved in preconstruction efforts for the past year, said Rick Keller, director of preconstruction services at Shaw, and are gearing up to start demolition of the gondola and lodge this spring.

"The challenge will be building in a downtown urban environment in the mountains surrounded on four sides by adjacent properties," said Keller.

Crews will devote considerable attention to ensuring that visitors are not impacted by construction, which will take place over two consecutive ski seasons.

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