Partnership Nets Whistler Firm Olympic Experience

Publish Date: January 2005

Your company wants to bid on a design project, but you’re a smaller firm focused on resort planning. What do you do? Paul Mathews, President of Ecosign Mountain Resorts Planners, formed partnerships that offered services ranging from planning to development, and it was a crucial component in helping his Whistler firm win venue design contracts for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. “We specialize in mountain resort design but we aren't engineers,” Mathews explains, “Forming partnerships that supplied services we didn't have resulted in a Request for Proposal that was much stronger.” Ecosign Mountain Resorts Planners was part of the British Columbia-based design team led by Sandwell Engineering of Vancouver that successfully bid to design the new Whistler Nordic Centre for the 2010 Winter Games.

The facility will be the site of cross-country skiing, ski jumping, biathlon and Nordic combined competitions. “The time constraints in building the Nordic centre are so tight that the project is a Design-Engineering proposal, meaning there won't be a tender phase for detailed engineering for roads, sewers, etc.,” Mathews says. “As part of a consortium, we are able to work with individuals with Olympic experience who know the ropes. This will enable us to move from design to construction as efficiently as possible.” Mathews credits Ecosign's first Olympic experience with the 1988 Calgary Winter Games in helping to establish his firm's reputation on resort projects worldwide. Ecosign designed the master plan for Nakiska, site of the 1988 alpine skiing events.

The Nakiska project brought the firm to the attention of a Japanese resort owner, who commissioned Ecosign for its master planning services. Today, Ecosign has worked on more than 40 ski area projects in Japan. For those interested in Olympic opportunities, Mathews also recommends developing value added features that will enhance a company's submitted proposal, such as access to an established site office. Through partnerships and advanced planning, Ecosign has turned its original Olympic experience into an area of expertise. “Ecosign might be a small firm,” Mathews says. “Yet partnerships have proven that size doesn't matter.”

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