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Creekside summer facelift gets underway

Improvements to Lake Placid Road head summer construction work The Lake Placid Road upgrades currently tearing up the asphalt in Whistler's original neighbourhood are sparking a flurry of construction work in Creekside over the summer months.

Improvements to Lake Placid Road head summer construction work

The Lake Placid Road upgrades currently tearing up the asphalt in Whistler's original neighbourhood are sparking a flurry of construction work in Creekside over the summer months.

Despite dust, noise and inconvenience, the heavy road machinery is a welcome sight for some.

"The visual impact (of the machinery) was tremendous and very exciting," said Gordon McKeever, chair of the Whistler Creek Merchants Association.

From a new Valley Trail, an improved highway intersection, a realigned creek and a brand-new Husky gas station, Creekside is getting a much-needed facelift this summer.

"Our goal plain and simple ... is to establish and maintain the validity of Whistler Creek as a viable component of the Whistler resort," said McKeever, who also owns the Whistler Resort and Club in Creekside.

The Lake Placid Road improvements, which include better water lines, a new sanitary main, underground duct work from BC Hydro and Telus, a new road surface, and a trail/sidewalk, are vital to entice business and development to the south side of Whistler, said McKeever.

For half a dozen years now the Association has been campaigning for the rehabilitation of Lake Placid Road.

Tired of open ditches, no sidewalks, dark streets and potholes older than Whistler itself, the Association was determined to get the municipality to make the much-needed upgrades.

Last Monday marked the end of the campaign season and the start of a summer season of construction.

For business owners like McKeever this summer has been a long time in coming.

"What we’re talking about is basic stuff," he said.

"Stuff that would be very normal in any community in B.C. on a street that had all that activity that this street has."

The street is the main access road to hundreds of residences, a couple of restaurants and hotels, a beer and wine store, and a train station, among many other things.

Throughout Whistler's early years Creekside residents and merchants, like other residents in other Whistler neighbourhoods, were willing to forgo development in their neighbourhood for the sake of the bigger resort picture.

That being the case, a large percentage of the resort's resources were funnelled back into the development of the village and its infrastructure as well as the park system.

"We had a big task," said McKeever.

"We had to build this big resort. Now it's time to look back to the rest of the community and start applying a bit of TLC that's been neglected for a couple of decades."

Now that the municipality is going ahead with its upgrades on the west side of the road, Intrawest is preparing for roadworks on the east side.

"It's done in conjunction with what the municipality is doing," said John Morley, director of development with Intrawest Resort Development Group, Whistler.

It creates a better final product if the work can be done at the same time, he said.

The part that will tie the east and west sides together is the intersection at Highway 99 and Lake Placid Road. Intrawest is responsible for this part of the development.

That intersection will be expanded to five lanes of traffic to increase the thoroughfare onto the highway. Instead of just one lane turning south onto the highway from the east side, there will now be two.

"It'll be like Village Gate Boulevard. You have the ability to pass two lanes through in the signal...and as anybody knows, this is where it gets backed up in the winter," said Morley.

The major work at the intersection is not slated to start until after The September long weekend Labour Day.

"It's all designed to minimize disruption to the highway traffic," said Morley.

"We're trying to get as much done in the shoulder season so that it's ready for the ski season."

Intrawest will also be expanding the west side of the highway to make room for the new Valley Trail on the east side.

The Trail will wind its way from Boston Pizza to Bayshores and completes the link to the new elementary school in Spring Creek.

Intrawest will also be moving a section of the Whistler Creek within the small fisheries window in August.

This will be roughly a four-week project, designed to move the creek from its current path through the parking lot to more of a dogleg course bypassing the lot.

Intrawest needs to move the creek in preparation for the 2003 construction of a four-story parkade on the day skier parking lot.

"The creek runs through the corner of our parkade footprint," said Morley.

Morley said there were extensive environmental impact studies done when Intrawest first submitted the development proposal in 1999.

The creek's course will only be temporary until a more permanent route can be developed near the Petro-Canada.

The final major construction project in the neighbourhood is taking place at the Husky Gas Station.

This project is scheduled to break ground in the fall. When it is all finished a brand new Husky Gas Station will take the place of the old.

The road works will also prompt more construction in the shape of outdoor landscaping, which can now be done in conjunction with the street works. Some of these landscaping projects have been on hold since 1996.

"It's a big job now because it was neglected for so long," said McKeever.

"Creekside is the first and the worst of these neighbourhoods because it was the original neighbourhood and it was neglected for the longest and it already had a pre-existing commercial component.

"This was a seriously abused neighbourhood."

This summer marks a turning point for Creekside.

"There was no point in spending a lot of money and effort and time trying to get more visitors to visit Creekside when it looked like hell," he said.

Now Creekside will be ready to deal with future development proposals the most prominent of which is the development plan by the Nita Lake Lodge Corporation.

This proposal would see the development of a 14,000 square foot train station that would accommodate a privately operated rail service focused specifically on tourists.

In addition to the train station there would be a state-of-the-art medical facility that would focus on baby boomer medicine i.e. joint replacement.

There will be a public hearing about the Nita Lake Lodge Corporation's plan on May 22.