The first stone of “Les terrasses d’Eos” the first building within the new Intrawest resort village being built at Flaine in France has been laid.
Les terrasses d’Eos is a four-star tourism residence made up of 91 apartments, the first part of Flaine Montsoleil village, which will ultimately have 2,400 beds.
As with Intrawest’s first European development, Arc 1950 – Le Village beneath Arc 2000 in Les Arcs, which is now virtually complete, the development pre-sold prior to construction within hours.
Again in similarity to the Les Arcs development, the new Intrawest development will be a marked contrast to some of the original 1960s and 70s French concrete architecture in adjacent resorts. The original Flaine development was built to a stark Bauhaus architectural style.
The completion date of “Les terrasses d’Eos” is summer 2007. The full resort is due to be completed by 2012. Intrawest is looking at other existing European ski areas to build lift-linked resorts within, including a site on the Swiss Four Valleys, near Verbier.
Since the announcement of the Flaine development, Intrawest has been sold to an investment company and it’s visionary founder and boss Joe Houssain has decided to retire after 30 years running the company.
www.intrawest.ca / www.flaine.com / www.ernalow.co.uk
New ski resorts are a rarity in Europe and North America but over the past five years several hundred new ski areas have opened in asia. Most of the new venues are rudimentary hills in China, which now boasts more than 300 ski areas – moving in to the world’s top ten by volume if not the number of lifts/ski runs overall. However international quality ski resorts have opened in Eastern Russia and 2010 Olympic host candidate runner-up Korea, which is also a finalist in the decision for host venue for the 2014 Games (to be decided next year).
Korea’s newest resort, scheduled to open on Friday, December 1st, is Land’s High 1 in Gangwon Province. The resort has 18 trails, more than half of them graded black or double black diamond, served by five chairlifts named after Greek gods (Zeus, Apollo, Hera, Athena and the previously unknown Victoria). Trails are up to 32.3 kmn long ands total 21km – the vertical drop is 680m.
Land High 1 will operate a train exclusively designed to transport skiers and their equipment between the nation’s two major cities - Seoul and Busan - and Jeongseon Station, near the resort. The operators hope the service will appeal to skiers disillusioned by traffic jams that are common at peak periods when heading to the existing ski resorts in Gangwon Province.