PROJECTS PROPOSED FOR 2015-17 RESORT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY

(FOR DISCUSSION PURPOSES)

PROJECT

FUNDING ALLOCATION

Alpine ski facility

$ 200,000

New shuttle bus

(lease for 2015-16; new bus purchase in 2016)

$ 240,000

Skateboard Park

$ 250,000

Pedestrian/bike trail to RMR

$ 150,000

Golf course improvements

$ 350,000

Special events

$ 175,000

Splashpark at Farwell

$ 100,000

Trail improvements behind Railway Museum

Improvements at Williamson Lake

$ 150,000

Digital signs on highway (2)

$ 120,000

Trail and bridge over box canyon

$ 750,000

Mountain bike trails

$ 120,000

Dirt bike trails*

Expand urban trail system

$ 200,000
ESTIMATED TOTAL

TOTAL FUNDS AVAILABLE:

25,000

15,000

$2,845,000

$1,382,717

Note 1: No additional funds included in this list for snowmobiling or museum

improvements.
*Note 2: The Revy Riders have requested an additional $15,000 for work on the dirt bike
trails. The MoF Initial Attack Crew were called out of town to fight fires, and they had to
pay a contractor to complete the brushing work. Cost $15,000.

See below for some of my thoughts on a Conference Centre.

A conference centre would allow us to attract more conferences/meetings than we

can now, which would potentially help increase tourism and room revenues
A good conference centre would cost upward of $2.5 million to build at a
minimum, assuming no land costs
We would therefore need to allocate a substantial portion of the current RMI
funds to this project if we want to make a difference
It is unlikely that we could find the matching funds for a project of this size before
2017
Research from other conference centres across the Province would indicate that
these facilities do not come close to covering operating costs through hosting
conferences/events
Unless we can develop a different operating model, there would be an ongoing
operating cost that has to be covered by some organization. Who would that be?
Staff from the one community that operates a conference centre have told me that
the operating cost deficit of their conference centre is in excess of 6 figures
annually
When we developed our first Resort Development Strategy in 2007, a conference
centre was the number 1 project. After 3 or 4 years, the Committee decided that
this project should be taken off the list. As I recall, one of the main reasons for
this was that the group thought that the market for conferences and conventions
was shrinking