it will need nearly $2 million in parts<\/a> — far more than originally projected — so it can be used as Eaglecrest intends.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\tConcerns have also been expressed about the initial funds the city spent on the gondola, an operating agreement with Goldbelt Inc. where the Native corporation is paying a $10 million lump sum for installation costs in exchange for a share of revenues for at least 25 years, and potential traffic and environmental impacts of large-scale summer tourism on the mountain.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
One question raised during Tuesday’s meeting was about summer parking capacity since, unlike winter where most visitors arrive by car, Scanlan estimates “we anticipate 90 to 95% of our visitors are going to be coming on motor coaches” during the summer.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“It’ll be likely that we’re going to be rotating buses through and not have a lot of buses parked there, so it will likely be rotating buses from the cruise board to the mountain and back,” he said, adding there will be plenty of parking capacity if several busses need to be staged at the resort.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Furthermore, Scanlan said in response to a question about possible additional traffic from non-residents during the winter, the plan includes adding 30 additional spaces near the Lower Nordic Trail.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The only person who signed up to testify at Tuesday’s meeting was Dave Hanna, who said he’s worked on various projects at the resort for more than 40 years and supports the summer expansion.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“Some people might be afraid to change, but this is going to be so good for the community,” he said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The main components of the summer development project, according to planning documents, are:<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
• A Summit House lodge for summer and winter use with about 4,000 square feet of indoor space including restrooms, banquet-style food service, a small bar for beer and wine sales, a general indoor seating area, and outdoor decks on the south, west and north sides.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
• A snowtubing park on the slope between the gondola midway station and Cropley Lake. Eaglecrest’s existing handle-tow tubing surface lift and snowmaking equipment will be utilized at the site.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
• Three new access roads for the construction of the gondola and Summit House lodge. While the roads will also be used for post-construction access and maintenance needs, “many of the gondola tower access trails and construction roads will be converted into mountain bike and hiking trails,” the project overview notes. “In addition, a new trail will be constructed that bisects the gondola line in as many locations as possible to provide a summer egress route if the gondola ever needs to be evacuated.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
• An approximately 1,250-square-foot picnic pavilion near Cropley Lake, primarily for summer use. “The structure will have design elements similar to the picnic pavilions installed at Auke Recreation Area, Lena Cove, and Auke Lake,” the project overview notes. “The pavilion will have a large propane-fueled fire pit available to guests. A concrete vault privy will be constructed adjacent to the pavilion site. The site will not have electrical service.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
• Two bridge crossings over Upper Fish Creek.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The planning commission unanimously approved the conditional use permit for the project. However, other agencies such as the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation will also need to approve aspects of the project such as wastewaster disposal and drinking water facilities at sites such as the summit lodge.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ski area also planning new summit lodge, snowtubing park, bike trails and picnic pavilion by 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":868,"featured_media":107337,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[898,536,32],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-107336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-municipal-government","tag-skiing","tag-tourism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/868"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107336"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=107336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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