Town hopes to compete with Vail, Park City
Renewed activity at a long-dormant development near Lake Tahoe is being seen as good news for the whole community. According to the Sacramento Bee, construction of a $15 million shopping and dining center on Highway 50, jump-started in August after five years, could be followed by a $400 million hotel and convention center that was planned for the same property before the recession. If that project gets off the ground, it could help Tahoe reinvent itself as a tourist destination, the Bee reported.
“We have a long way to go to catch up with Vail and Aspen and Jackson Hole,” said Chuck Scharer, who owns Edgewood Tahoe golf course, just over the state line in California. Scharer plans a $100 million-plus hotel lodge at the course.
More developments are also on the way, including the $7 million renovation of the Embassy Suites, which will be renamed the Lake Tahoe Resort Hotel, and the resurrection of the famous Cal Neva casino hotel, briefly owned during the 1960s by singer Frank Sinatra. Developer Criswell Radovan of Napa says he hopes to reopen the Cal Neva in December.
Tahoe, marked by 60s-style lodges and motels, has already seen a rash of investment in its ski slopes, the Bee reported. Corporate buyers have acquired the Kirkwood and Squaw Valley resorts with an eye to developing high-end destinations to rival Vail and Park City, Utah.
“We have this incredible scenic lake,” said tourism consultant Carl Ribaudo of Strategic Marketing Group. “But the infrastructure doesn’t match.”
