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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - When they look at Twin Pine Hill, Yellowknifers can only imagine the hotel and convention centre that might some day be built on one of the city's most dramatic viewpoints.

It's been six years since city council debated whether to sell a three-hectare slice of the rock to a consortium of First Nations investors, and it seems likely that even more time will pass before anything is built on the hill that offers views of the city centre, Old Town and Yellowknife Bay.

A snowy playground for foxes and ptarmigan, Twin Pine Hill offers breathtaking views of Yellowknife and Great Slave Lake. - Jack Danylchuk/NNSL photo

"The city would have to build a convention centre there before we invest in a hotel, and I don't think there's anything like that in their plans," said Roy Erasmus Jr., CEO of Deton'Cho Development Corporation, which now owns the land and the project.

Mayor Gord Van Tighem said that although the convention centre plan was sidelined for a couple of years, it is now back on the city's agenda.

"A convention centre in Yellowknife has been recognized as the necessary next step in building tourism in the Northwest Territories," said Van Tighem.

Council passed a bylaw in 2003 that approved the sale of two separate lots that straddle the summit and two years later ownership was transferred to Yellowknife River Resorts Inc. which paid $35,532 for one lot and $145,965 for the other. The properties have an assessed value of $711.120.

Deton'Cho also inherited an option to buy several lots at the base of Twin Pine Hill where a work crew has been taking soil samples from a site formerly occupied by a service station. The parcel is not connected to the hilltop development, Erasmus said. The public has never seen the detailed plans for the site, which Erasmus said include space for retail businesses, offices and apartments as well as the 160-room hotel and separate convention centre.

The total cost of the hotel was estimated at $25 million in 2005. That's obviously out of date, Erasmus said, "but given what's happened in the past year, it might not be so far off the mark."

Erasmus said that an architect has prepared plans for the project, but he declined to make them public. A sketch filed with the land title sets out the boundaries of the two lots, and shows an access road winding up to the dramatic site from Franklin Ave.

But for the immediate future, the summit of Twin Pine Hill will remain a winter denning area for foxes and a summer home for guerrilla campers.