Winter Park Resort Zephyr Lift Replacement

Saunders completed our first on-mountain project for Winter Park Resort in 2018 — installing a new 10-person gondola to increase upload capacity to 3,600 guests per hour.

Saunders replaced the Zephyr Express chairlift, a high-speed quad chairlift capable of carrying four passengers, with a new 10-person gondola. The new gondola and maintenance building has upper and lower terminals with snow-melted plaza areas for loading and unloading skiers and decreases skier wait time by approximately 15 minutes during peak season hours. The project scope also included a tenant improvement build-out of the existing lower gondola building for the control cabin and IT equipment.

The fast-track project required a collaborative preconstruction process and design effort to get to 100% construction documents in just eight weeks. It also required close coordination with the gondola contractor to ensure the major installation was completed in time for the 2018-2019 ski season.