Enclosed snow domes have existed for 20 years, but first-to-market honors in the United States could go to Xanadu, a $2 billion entertainment and retail village under construction at the Meadowlands Sports Complex. Scheduled to open in late 2008, the centerpiece attraction of the 4.8 million-square-foot project will be a 140-foot tall ski run. Its massive skeletal structure is already piquing curiosity as it juts from the horizon alongside the New Jersey Turnpike.
"People who don't know it's a ski dome wonder what it is," said Lloyd Kaplan, a spokesman for Xanadu. "It sort of looks like a ski jump into the next county."
Other faux snow meccas are on the drawing board: A Las Vegas firm planning North America's largest indoor water park recently announced it will be adding snow slopes, with a tentative opening in 2011. A North Carolina dome has been proposed, with six indoor triple-chair lifts and five runs built on an actual mountainside. Another ambitious developer near Atlanta wants to build a destination community that includes ski slopes, a regulation NHL hockey rink, a 1-mile snowmobile racetrack, hotels, restaurants, retail shopping, and residences.
The aspirations of the earliest enclosed ski facilities were far humbler. In 1987, Snowdome Adelaide on the dry coast of southern Australia premiered the world's first indoor run. Copycat interior slopes soon proliferated, primarily in Asia and Europe. Although Adelaide closed in 2005 because of the high costs of electricity, water, and liability insurance, some 30 others have flourished, carving a niche by bringing mountains to the masses, not the other way around.
"For beginners, it's perfect," said Martin Raymond, a spokesperson for Xscape, which operates three snow domes in England and Scotland. "It's not the mountain environment, but the best first step for beginners and those who want to sharpen up skills. For beginners, it is more attractive than unpredictable, and often windswept, Scottish slopes."
