Doolans project taking shape

Major planning work is underway for The Remarkables ski field expansion into the Doolans.

NZSki boss Paul Anderson says the project, selected for the Government's new Fast-Track process, would almost triple the size of The Remarks from 385 hectares to over 900ha.

It would also increase the ski field's economic impact from $150m per year to more than $400m, according to a study by Arrowtown-based economist Benje Patterson.

That would support 6000 jobs in the Queenstown Lakes economy.

"For those who haven't seen it, the terrain over the back in the Doolans is magnificent," Anderson says at the NZSki annual update on Thursday.

"We're going through a process of how we'll get there. A couple of years ago, I stood up and said we're going to put in a tunnel. We've done a lot of work on that, geo-tech designs, but we're also looking at lifts. There are pros and cons to both.

"We've got to work out what is going to be best for our customers, what is going to have the least impact on the environments we operate in, and of course, what is the most financially sustainable for us."

Anderson says the company's Development & Operations GM Louise McQuillan has already put in an incredible amount of work to the Doolans Fast-Track application.

"We're really proud to be on that list and we're going to push that forward. We've got a massive amount of work to do to get that ready to submit to the EPA [Environmental Protection Authority] when we actually know what the process will be."

 

The Doolans project is one of two the company had selected for the Fast-Track process. It is also involved in the controversial Coronet Village proposal at its other Queenstown skifield, Coronet Peak, with consortium partners Bernard Cleary, Rod Drury, and Te Tapu o Tāne.

The proposal includes a gondola from Malaghans Valley floor, a summit restaurant and loop walk, a world-class mountain bike hub, a 780-home subdivision, commercial premises, schools, car parks, and a base for an iwi charity.

"There's potential for us to look at a mountain top restaurant in the future, but the immediate priority for us would be to get that gondola with the mountain bike hub at the bottom," Anderson says.

"I'm really excited by it. I think it will be quite magnificent. It will link to the trails with a Bike Glendhu style hub at the bottom. People who want to go down-hilling can jump on the gondola, or people who want to go cross-country can do that too."

A gondola could be a solution for The Remarks too, with car parking already a challenge before the Doolans expansion.

"There are a few options in the Fast-Track application. We've actually got another level on car park one. But there are only so many vehicles that an eight-metre wide road can cope with," Anderson says.

"We also own the bottom 50 acres of that road, so there's potential for carparking and shuttling from the bottom, but that would take a lot more half-a-million dollar buses. The other obvious option that has been talked about, mainly by Remarkables Park, is a gondola. They were talking about from Remarkables Park, perhaps for us it could be from the bottom of Rastus Burn."

There's also flat land and a paper road at the bottom of the northern end of the Remarkables, he says, opposite Lake Hayes Estate.

For this summer though, the on-mountain work will be in upgrading and extending the existing $35m of snow-making facilities, including guns, pipes and the grooming team, which proved so crucial this year with the unusually timed snowfalls.

Across the season, NZSki had 690,000 ski visits across three resorts. Mt Hutt was up 10,000, while collectively The Remarkables and Coronet Peak in Queenstown were down 10,000. Aussie and domestic visits were about even in numbers, with Aussies coming when the snow fell in September and October.