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Construction is well under way at Van Ho

The site of a new base lodge, biathlon stadium and shooting range are seen here Tuesday from the 1980 bobsled-luge-skeleton track. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)
construction work at Mount Van Hoevenberg is seen here Tuesday. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)
The beginnings of a new wall is pictured here at the Mount Van Hoevenberg Olympic Sports Complex Tuesday. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)
construction work at Mount Van Hoevenberg is seen here Tuesday from the 1980 bobsled-luge-skeleton track. (Enterprise photo — Lou Reuter)
A rendering shows what a new three-story, 30,000-square-foot base lodge at Mount Van Hoevenberg is expected to look like. (Provided image — Olympic Regional Development Authority)
A rendering shows what a new three-story, 30,000-square-foot base lodge at Mount Van Hoevenberg is expected to look like. (Provided image — Olympic Regional Development Authority)

LAKE PLACID — Site work is well underway at the Olympic Sports Complex at Mount Van Hoevenberg.

Temporary dirt roads lined the area beyond the 1980 bobsled track Tuesday. Construction equipment was scattered throughout the site where a new three-story base lodge, complete with amenities for bobsled and skeleton fans, hikers, biathletes and Nordic ski enthusiasts, is set to be built.

The upgrades underway are part of a large-scale, state-funded overhaul of Lake Placid-area sports facilities being undertaken by the state Olympic Regional Development Authority ahead of the 2023 World University Games, a sporting event second only in size to the Olympics. The Games, sometimes called the Winter Universiade, are expected to draw upward of 2,500 student-athletes to Lake Placid.

Beyond the construction of a new 30,000-square-foot base lodge, which is being built by the Rochester-based Pike Company, other work slated at Mount Van Hoevenberg includes the construction of a new cross-country ski stadium and two “mountain coasters,” one for recreation and another for transportation; the addition of more cross-country ski trails and updated trailheads — relocated away from state Route 73 — that would connect to Cascade, Porter and Pitchoff mountains; and the incorporation of a new 8-million gallon snowmaking reservoir with storage.

Construction at Mount Van Hoevenberg is projected to last roughly 26 months and cost upward of $60 million, according to ORDA CEO Michael Pratt. The new base lodge is expected to open in the winter of 2021, and the other work, including the installation of new trails and stadium construction, is scheduled for completion in 2021 or 2022.

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