A $1-billion residential and resort development on the outskirts of Vernon received a name and its first marketing push Tuesday.

The 1,210-unit project on 735 acres west of Vernon will be known as The Rise. Construction has already begun on home sites, a vineyard and a Fred Couples-designed golf course, tentatively named Black Paw at The Rise.

Plans call for 660 homes, another 550 hotel suites and vacation cottages, a retail village, and a winery, as well as tennis and equestrian centres, to be built out over eight years. But the developer promises to retain the former range land's bucolic character.

"We`re not over-developing the land, said Leona Snider, president and CEO of Okanagan Hills Development Corp., noting how just one-third of the land base will be taken up by housing.

Snider, a former road builder who developed Whistler's Aspen Ridge, bought the property in 1990. Partner Ian Renton developed golf courses including Grey Wolf at Panorama Resort and the Harvest Golf Club in Kelowna.

The group enlisted locally born, French-trained vintner Eric Von Krosigk to plan the vineyard and winery, which will be one of the most northerly in the Western Hemisphere.

The Rise joins a growing cohort of resort-type developments around Vernon, which set a record for building permits worth $77 million last year and, according to city planner Dale Rintoul, currently has another $125-million-plus worth of construction in the application process.

Predator Ridge Golf Community has built out more than 300 of its planned 2,100 units, Rintoul said. Austrian investors are building Kristall Resort, a 150-room hotel and wellness centre, nearby.

Though the Outback Resort in Okanagan Landing boasts just 186 residential units, some of those homes are well over $1 million, Rintoul said. And the Strand Lakeside Resort will anchor the city's waterfront redevelopment initiative.

Meanwhile developers including Abbotsford-based DC Properties, have proposed 1,760 homes, along with commercial and industrial space on Turtle Mountain. Smaller home builders are rolling out subdivisions in the Middleton Mountain and Silver Star Foothills areas 50 to 100 lots at a time, Kintoul said.

Perhaps not surprisingly, both Rona and Home Depot are building stores in the new Anderson Business Park, along with Real Canadian Superstore, Kal Tire and Value Village. As much as half the activity is taking place in the Okanagan Landing area, which the city annexed in 1993 and has been extending services to ever since, Rintoul said.

Given the buoyant state of the Okanagan real estate market, Snider expects The Rise to build out much faster than Predator Ridge, which did some really hard time over the past 10 years, when demand for new, high-end housing was often moribund.

She said the homes will range in price from $400,000 to more than $1 million and will be targeted at retirees, semi-retirees and older families.