Earlier this spring it appeared possible that every remaining parcel in Village North and the village, with the exception of the municipality’s amenity lands, could be built on this summer. While construction is at a record level, there are a few parcels that won’t be built on this year. Foremost is Trion International’s Whistler International Resort Hotel on Lot 1 and the waterslides site, next to the Delta Whistler Resort. "We’ll probably start construction next March," Vlad Plavsic of Trion said this week. "It’s a huge project, $110 million. It takes more time." Earlier this year Trion received municipal approvals for a 368-room, five-star hotel on the site. The approved project had nearly 20,000 square feet of convention space, but with the Chateau Whistler’s expansion Plavsic said the convention space has now been cut back. "There’s no room for two huge convention facilities," he said. "We’ll still have a big ballroom, but the Chateau’s convention facilities will be larger than anything in downtown (Vancouver)." The Chateau’s $50 million expansion will double the size of its convention facilities, to 28,000 square feet, and add 200 rooms to the hotel’s existing inventory of 343. The expansion is scheduled for completion in January 1998. Plavsic said the Whistler International Hotel will likely be strata-titled — "unless Santa Claus comes" — and sales of the units could begin in November. He added it will be a full-service hotel with standards "higher than the Chateau." Other developments that now appear unlikely to go ahead this year are Lot 23 in Village North, the hotel site at Village Gate Boulevard and Highway 99, Lot 19 on Main Street, a lodge and retail site opposite the Tindall Stone Lodge, and the skiers chapel, next to municipal hall. Lot 9, adjacent to the municipal amenity lands, has not been sold. - Whistler Racquet and Golf Resort, Park Georgia - Intrawest, Lot 1 in original village - Water Park, RMOW and developers - Stoney Creek III, Appia, Lot 27 - Pinnacle International, Pinnacle International Resort Club, Lot 22 - Mont Blanc, United Properties/Delta, Lot 5 - Alpenglow Lodge, Trilogy, Lot 18 - Mark James Brew Pub, Mark James, Lot 8 - Symphony at Whistler, Lot 30, Qualex Resorts - Glacier’s Reach Trilogy, Lot 31 & 32 - Kuna Enterprises Ltd. (Perkins & Company), Lot 33, 38 townhouses
