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Vail bowling alley, movie theater get last OK

EDWARD STONEReagle county correspondent

VAIL – The once-controversial Crossroads project got the last “yes” vote it needs Wednesday when Vail’s Design Review Board voted to approve the project, now called Solaris.”We’re done,” developer Peter Knobel said after the meeting.The project includes 69 condos, a three-screen movie theater, a 10-lane bowling alley, stores, restaurants and a plaza that will have an ice rink in the winter. The new building replaces the aging Crossroads building, just west of the Vail Village parking garage.Construction is supposed to start at the end of this ski season.While scores of people filled council chambers when the project was being considered last year, on Wednesday, just a few people, many of them Knobel’s employees, watched the design board make its final decision.The Town Council first approved the project last March, but opponents of the project forced a townwide vote. Detractors said the project was too tall and bulky and didn’t fit with Vail’s ski village atmosphere. Knobel and his supporters said the building will bring energy, including needed activities for families, to Vail Village.In July, voters overwhelmingly approved the project.Solaris had been in front of the design board for about seven months.The project will return to the town’s planning commission and Town Council to try to increase its allowed number of condos from 69 to 75, said Dominic Mauriello, a planner for the project.But even if they don’t get that approval, the project will proceed, Mauriello said.It’s been more than two years since the project was first submitted to the town.It’s been more than two years since the project was first submitted to the town.


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