Canoe Mountain shelved; economics, investor confidence cited

After a decade largely defined by population loss, big dreams and disappointment, the village of Valemount may be about to cash in on its dramatic setting and proximity to Jasper National Park. 

“This is real,” said Shirley Sander, president of Saas Fee Land Developments Inc., the company behind the $70 million Valemount Village Resort and Spa planned for a 5.92 acre site within the  municipal boundaries.

The village of 1,018, ninety minutes west of Jasper on the Yellowhead Highway, is still buzzing with an an announcement earlier this month that the $100 million Canoe Mountain Resort is dead, the victim of rising construction costs and investor disinterest. 

A self-described “ski bum” with 20 years experience in real estate investment, including a subdivision on Pigeon Lake and rental properties in Edmonton, Sander said she is happy that Canoe Mountain promoters have finally called it quits.

“Someone will buy the property and do great things,” she said. “The town was being held for ransom.”

Five years ago, Gerry Levasseur, president of Sunrise International Inc., which owns the Jasper Inn and Maligne Tours, boasted that Canoe Mountain would be  “Canada’s newest four-season hotspot, with the longest gondola in North America, 27 stunning holes of golf, exclusive mountain homes, world-class cuisine and recreational attractions galore.”

Levasseur’s optimism ran counter to the findings of a report commissioned five years earlier by Valemount and the Area Economic Development Commission, which said the market wouldn’t support a ski hill; there are just too few people in the region and no nearby airport to bring more in. 

Silvio Gislimberti, Valemount’s economic development officer, said that John Cosgrove, vice-president of Sunrise, announced that Canoe Mountain was being shelved, and cited the uncertain tourism market in northern British Columbia and increased costs for infrastructure and amenities.

“The project as approved is simply unable to generate the financial return necessary to attract large investors.  The sight seeing gondola could not be operated profitably if constructed,” the company said in announcing its decision to shelve Canoe Mountain.

“Efforts by the company to negotiate a smaller development with an initial residential subdivision without the gondola were not supported by the province of British Columbia, the regional district or the village of Valemount,” the announcement said.  

Cosgrove said that Sunrise invested more than $ 3.6 million in Canoe Mountain, which he called “small by B.C. standards. We had 360 homes, Kicking Horse has 10 times that.”

Sunrise retains control of 360 acres of land and Cosgrove said no decision has been made on whether it will be held for future development or sold. Sunrise was a public company, trading on the Canadian Venture Exchange when it answered a B.C. government request for proposal and was awarded a development permit for the Canoe Mountain property. Earlier this year, it voluntarily ceased public trading in its shares.

“Mr. Levasseur decided to take Sunrise private,” Cosgrove said.

The Canoe Mountain project was seen as a catalyst for tourism industry development in the Valemount area and Cosgrove predicted that  any other projects would face the same challenges in attracting  investors. 

The latest Remax Recreational Property Report says that while prices remain firm, consumer interest in ski chalets and lakeside cottages slowed in the first quarter of this year. Nevertheless,  Sander is confident that the Valemount Village project will find a broad range of investors in Alberta and British Columbia.  

“Heli-skiing is big here, we’re an hour from Marmot, but Valemount is a huge sled resort - that’s what brings tourists now,” she said.

Valemount Village is aimed at “vacationers and weekenders, young families, retirees and outdoors enthusiasts. “We have 140 people on a waiting list; not all of them will buy, but there is strong interest,” Sander said.

Investors have the option of  year-round, unrestricted access to their unit, or exploring income opportunities through a rental pool. There are 148 fully furnished luxury units planned -  divided between bachelors, one to three-bedroom apartments and townhomes

Sander plans is to break ground on the project this summer, with completion in 18 months, including 70,000 square feet of  new retail space.

“Valemount has been waiting for a project like this for 20 years,” said Sander.

Perter Lewis agrees. His company, Lewis Holdings of North Vancouver, bought 205 lots in Valemount and is selling them as serviced home sites. Thirty-five lots priced in the $50,000 range, the first of seven phases in the project, will go on sale later this year.

“I think there is a great deal of potential for tourism development; there is so much in Valemount that you can’t get anywhere else,” said Lewis, who will market the properties in B.C., Alberta and Washington state.

Doug Flemming, town administrator, sees Valemount developing in relation to Jasper in the way that Invermere and Radium have responded to demand for accommodation in Banff – but without the explosive growth of Canmore.

Housing prices in Valemount are one-third to one half of  those in Jasper. Mobile homes sell in the $120,000 range and bungalows for around $250,000, attracting buyers from Alberta who want a recreational property, or an investment, Flemming said

The town is building a new $3 million water treatment plant, which will be split between the province, Ottawa and the municipality.

There is a municipal airport with a 4,200 foot paved runway that offers a weekly winter connection to Calgary for the heli-ski crowd. 

It’s been two years since Valemount  Forest Products Ltd. closed its doors, eliminating the jobs of more than 100  mill workers, loggers and truckers. Pine beetles have devastated the surrounding forest, but money from a federal program for communities affected by the plague is on the way. In Valemount it will be used to re-vitalize the downtown.

When Highway 5 came through in the Sixties, Valemount was still focused on the railway. As development shifted toward the road, a large gap opened in the village. The Valemount Village project, slated for a site once occupied by the high school, would focus the commercial centre, said Gislemberti.

The collapse of the Canoe Mountain project was a deeply felt disappointment, “but the news hasn’t been all bad,” said Gislemberti, pointing to recent additions to the village: a new tourist information centre, PetroCanada station and drug store. 

“We’re still just a stop on the highway for people driving through to Vancouver; our objective is to become a favourite stop between Jasper and Kamloops.”