By Andru McCracken

Fields Department Store on 5th Avenue will be the first building in Valemount to use the village’s new mountain theme.

While other buildings were designed while the theme was in development, village administrator Doug Fleming said that this is the first to be built since it was adopted by council.

Showing developers how to build to the theme has proved a bit of a trick, said Fleming.

Rather than strict regulations that rule communities like Jasper, the theme provides guidelines.

“We don’t want to tell you how to design your building, but these are the concepts. Sometimes that is hard for developers to understand,” he said.

Fleming said that the developer met with council two or three times, but he said that the process was a successful one.

“Initially, they would have put up a flat-roofed brick-faced building using construction blocks,” he said. “Council said ‘No, it needs to have a profile, some sort of log work and rock work.’”

Fleming said that the building is essentially the same painted brick-face building, but there will be stonework along its edges and base.

Fleming, who was instrumental in developing the theme, said that it would cost developers more to follow.

“That’s the cost of building in this community,” he said.

He said that the theme would help to identify Valemount in the long run, and leave people with a unique impression of the place.

Council has endorsed the development permit. Fleming said it would be ratified at the next meeting.