The planned new $500 million-plus Winter Sports World Indoor snow centre in Western Sydney has released renderings of how its interiors is expected to look as momentum builds towards construction commencing next year.

The newly released images follow announcements earlier in August that locally based attractions company Hammons Holdings has been selected as preferred operator to run and manage the snow attractions and that Trippas White Group has been chosen to run the food and beverage offerings.

Facilities will include a 300m main run for experienced skiers and boarders, learn to ski runs and a dedicated winter wonderland snow play area. There’ll also be indoor ice climbing and outdoor rock climbing and a 170-room hotel with conference and function rooms as well as restaurant and cafes with snow views.

“This is a transformational piece of tourism and social infrastructure befitting Australia’s newest global gateway, Western Sydney International Airport, just 12km away,” said Winter Sports World managing director, Peter Magnisalis, “Winter Sports World will change the Penrith and Western Sydney landscape in a way and to such a degree that the whole world will sit up and take notice,” he said. “We are on track to begin construction in 2025.”

The facility has been making progress towards construction getting underway for some years and has now believed to have passed through statutory planning requirements and announced it expects construction will begin in 2025.

The centre will be the first indoor snow facility in Australia for more than a decade and be on another level to earlier indoor snow centres. The included the world’s first indoor snow centre of the modern era which operated from 1987 to the early 2000s at MtTheBarton in Adelaide.

There are now around 150 indoor snow centres operating on six continents, a third of them in China. The nearest centre to Australia is currently in New Zealand where Snowplanet in Auckland has been operating for nearly 20 years.