Large villas with views of the valley. Apartments overlooking Kiamesha Lake. Condominiums lining championship golf courses. Wandering trails. A village center. A lodge. A five-star hotel and spa. That’s Westchester developer Louis Cappelli’s $1.5 billion dream for the Concord Hotel, once the Catskills’ largest and most famous resort, and the sprawling 1,735 acres surrounding it.

Cappelli hopes to restore the Concord as a premier destination resort. He also plans to build 3,000 new homes and hundreds of thousands of square feet of hotel, retail, office and convention space.

Despite seven years of delays, ripped-up plans and missed deadlines, Cappelli now seems headed for a ground-breaking, possibly as soon as this year. He even has some skeptical locals convinced.

“We’ve been listening to this for 35 years,” said Jack Zeldin, 86, a long-time summer visitor staying in Masten Lake. “The impression I get is that they’re serious and might go forward with it.”

Very few people in a packed public hearing in the Town of Thompson yesterday had anything critical to say about Cappelli’s plans. Residents asked about traffic complications, the water supply, demands placed on local governments and why the town should create a new zoning designation for the developers.

“You’re going to build a new town, it looks like,” said John Light of Smallwood. “A very nice town. I guess the other town we have here won’t be much after that.”

Cappelli’s plans, including an environmental impact statement, still need to be approved by the Town Board. The town must also agree to create a new zoning designation called “Planned Resort Development,” specially designed by Cappelli’s people for the project.

Additionally, Cappelli will have to build in stages, with each phase requiring approval by the town Planning Board.

The first phase would cost about $100 million and include a five-star hotel/spa with 125 to 200 rooms on the site of the former ski chalet, a new clubhouse on the golf course and up to 200 homes east of the clubhouse.

Construction could wrap up by spring of 2008 if the town quickly approves the plans, said Bruce Berg, an executive vice president with Cappelli Enterprises.

But that’s not a promise.

ROL