Homewood plans to become the Tahoe equivalent of Deer Valley. So says Art Chapman, founder of JMA Ventures, which has just come off a period of wheeling and dealing: merging Alpine Meadows with Squaw Valley USA, buying a theme park that may neighbor the 49ers’ new Bay Area stadium, expressing interest in purchasing Kirkwood Mountain Resort, and talking of an eventual ski connection from Homewood to Alpine Meadows and Squaw Valley.
Chapman knows he has something special in Homewood — the largest piece of private land alongside one of the world’s most majestic lakes. And like Deer Valley Resort in Utah, his Homewood plans are ambitiously high-end in every sense, formulated to attract destination skiers from around the world and push the envelope on environmental innovation.
On-site renewable power generation, water taxi transportation, porous pavement, and a gold LEED certification are all planned for the new base area that includes 240 residential units, a 75-room hotel, a gondola, and a new on-mountain day lodge fashioned after Tahoe’s Vikingsholm. The plan is meant to resurrect Homewood Mountain Resort from years of financial insolvency by drawing destination skiers and breaking the resort away from the cycle of busy weekends and nearly vacant weekdays. Homewood averages about 300 skiers on a weekday and 3,000 on a weekend or holiday. Chapman said the goal of the development is to increase weekday skier visits and decrease the number of weekend skiers.
‘We don’t want to inundate Homewood with people…’ said Chapman. ‘We don’t want to change the character. We just want to keep it open.’
Homewood’s current condition as a day-skier mountain with minimal amenities has proven itself to be a money-losing model. Homewood lost nearly $5 million dollars over the last five years, which does not include the $7 million that JMA invested in a new high-speed lift.
As JMA Ventures sees it, the new plan would turn Homewood into a profitable business that would benefit the West Shore’s economy and community.
‘This is not just a ski area; it is part of the economic fabric of the community,’ said Chapman.
Apart from the development, JMA Ventures is very proud of the environmental innovations integrated into the plan. Working with Integrated Environmental Restoration Services, JMA estimates its environmental restoration work is keeping 88,000 pounds of sediment from reaching the lake each year, and the environmental improvements included in the project will keep an additional 66,000 pounds of sediment out of the watershed each year.
‘There are organizations that talk about keeping Tahoe blue,’ said Chapman. ‘We are really keeping Tahoe blue.’
The resort plans to use a combination of rooftop solar installations, micro-hydro power generation on two of the mountain’s streams, and geothermal energy to produce one third of the resort’s power on location in renewable ways. The resort also plans to buy a fleet of electric vehicles that will be stationed at Homewood and can be used by guests. Finally, much of the pavement used at the base area would be pervious, allowing water to soak through and infiltrate into the ground, reducing erosion.
‘This is a really unique piece of property and a very sensitive property,’ said Chapman.
The support for the Homewood plan has been widespread. Over 1,200 letters of support for the project have been received by JMA Ventures, which has forwarded them on to the TRPA and Placer County, and the North Tahoe Regional Advisory Committee and the Placer County Planning Commission have both approved the project.
West Shore resident and business owner Ed Miller says the project will enable the Homewood ski resort to stay open, and bring some new energy to the West Shore.
‘I think it is going to revitalize the West Shore,’ said Miller, who has lived in Tahoma for 35 years. ‘I think it is going to be good for local residents and visitors.’
Some West Shore homeowners have not been as complimentary. Friends of the West Shore, a nonprofit ‘grassroots community conservation organization,’ has raised concerns about the size of the project, and even hired consultants to provide thorough comments on the proposal.
An environmental attorney, a traffic analyst, a geologist, and a hydrogeologist have all submitted comments on the proposal for the Friends of the West Shore. The environmental attorney’s comments alone totaled 72 pages.
‘We don’t think the project is ready to be approved in December,’ said Friends of the West Shore Vice President Judi Tornese, a part-time West Shore resident. ‘These are the tallest buildings on the West Shore. This is the largest development ever proposed on the West Shore. And this will change the West Shore forever.’
Building height and the development’s overall scale, traffic, and the effect of the project’s underground parking on groundwater are all concerns that Friends of the West Shore has with the Homewood proposal.
While it is easy to draw similarities between the Homewood proposal and neighboring ski villages at Squaw Valley and Northstar, there are some very distinct differences. Homewood’s plan is almost entirely lodging and residential, only adding a hardware store, ice cream parlor, and deli to the base area, all of which were requested by the local community. The other non-residential portion of the project is a large, on-mountain day lodge, which will offer skier services and food and beverage.
‘We don’t believe that ski areas should provide competition to our communities Tahoe City and Truckee,’ said Chapman.
Furthermore, Homewood has the advantage of lakeside lodging and condos, meaning that the sought-after four-season resort concept, which has been talked about in Tahoe for years but accomplished with limited success, will most likely be a reality at the West Shore ski resort. In fact, with a marina and the lakefront West Shore Café (which JMA also owns) right across the street, Homewood may be even busier in summer months than during ski season.
JMA Ventures is also touting the project’s short- and long-term effects on the local economy. The project would create 500 construction jobs, $75 million in wages paid during construction, 180 full-time, year-round jobs, between $6 and $7 million in additional tax revenue, and up to $20 million more in visitor spending, according to the company’s calculations.
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