RED FEATHER LAKES — Moving quickly from its ’70s roots into the ’00s, a little-known Tibetan Buddhist retreat center near this mountain community is embarking on a major expansion to lure the mainstream conference business.

The Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center, which spreads over a 550-acre landscape that is mostly granite boulders and ponderosa pine, has for three decades been a haven for people who seek a place for meditation and contemplative homage to a 2,500-year-old Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

But a master plan to spend $6 million on ultra-tech conference facilities, new housing and dining accommodations is aimed at diversifying the center’s clientele to include business meetings as well as spiritual gatherings.

The group is hoping to lure groups that seek an alternative to meeting in well-equipped but sterile hotel conference settings.

“We began 30 years ago developing this Tibetan Buddhist tradition in America from scratch,´ said Jeff Waltcher, who is directing Shambhala’s expansion from the center’s Boulder headquarters.

“We’ve decided we want to take this beyond just working on ourselves, so to speak. Now we’re ready to create a facility that is worthy of hosting people from the broader community.”

Components of the master plan run the gamut from fiber-optic cables to pots and pans.

But central to the Shambhala expansion is the completion of the Great Stupa — a 10-story tall Buddhist sanctum that has been under construction since 1987.

The stupa, which Waltcher refers to as a “container” for the essence of Buddhist teachings, sits at the head of a small canyon, its gold leaf-covered dome and spire soaring above the ponderosas and granite spires that surround it.

“It’s bound to become a major tourist attraction,” Waltcher said. “Maybe it’s not on the scale of, say, Trail Ridge Road, but it’s significant.”

Even as work progresses on the expansion project, Red Feather Lakes old-timers may take time to change their thinking about the Shambhala center as a locally legendary “hippie haven.”

“Remember what you can from the ’60s and early ’70s,´ said Dan Hessey, who has been director of the Rocky Mountain Shambhala Center for 25 years. “Let your imagination run wild, and we were all that — and more.”

Locals tell stories of naked hippies encroaching too closely on a nearby permanent encampment of Camp Fire Girls and of days-long festivals of drums and marijuana.

“I know things used to get pretty wild down there in the past,´ said Carla Woodward, a long-time seasonal Red Feather Lakes resident. “You know — sex, drugs, nudity. But I have the feeling they’ve settled down some.”

Evidence of Shambhala’s beads-and-bells roots is evident on the hillsides that surround the core of the community. Weathered dome homes and A-frames, some crumbling earthward, are being dismantled as the center remakes itself.

On the summer construction schedule are plans for an 8,000-square-foot main assembly hall, a new dining center and upscale housing for conference goers in a new complex of 25 rooms, each convertible from single to double occupancy.

The plan also includes a spa and health club, with enough saunas and hot tubs to accommodate conference attendees, Waltcher said.

The rest of the expansion budget will go toward water and sewer improvements, realignment and upgrading of roads, landscaping and high-tech infrastructure installation.

The overhaul marks a realization by center operators that their mountain spiritual retreat offers unique attractions for people planning business gatherings.

“People are looking for ways to connect the meditation tradition, and I think that ties right into the timeliness of what we’re doing,” Waltcher said.

“As we’ve moved into this new century, the challenge that business people face in dealing with communities, keeping good employees, organizational leadership, marketing and sales, all those things are getting more complicated. People are searching for a different kind of context in which discussions of these things can take place.”

The full range of improvements to the center hinges partly on whether Shambhala can raise most of the $6 million price tag through sale of special bonds authorized by Colorado law and available to certain non-profit entities.

If Shambhala qualifies for the Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority bonds, mortgaging the expansion project will be a bargain.

“It allows us to take advantage of a very low interest rate,” Waltcher said. “We’re estimating that the total [borrowing] cost would be about 4.75 percent per year.”

In the past, Shambhala’s construction projects have been the work of the ultimate do-it-yourselfers. Builders of the Great Stupa, for example, are volunteers working under the tutelage of Tibetan Buddhist architects who ritualistically selected the stupa’s site and advised on the early construction.

The stupa will open in the summer of 2001, the time ordained by the Tibetan monks who began the project. The Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, has watched progress on the stupa from afar.

“I pray that the project may be successfully fulfilled,” he said in a message to Shambhala workers, “becoming an inspiration for peace and happiness throughout the world, now and in the future.”

Waltcher said he hoped the Dalai Lama, who has visited Shambhala’s Boulder headquarters, will pay a visit when the stupa is dedicated.

Construction of the conference facilities will require hiring local contractors and engineers, as the magnitude of the work exceeds the resources of Shambhala volunteers.

The center’s shift in focus from providing a meditative retreat for Buddhist “insiders” to opening up for conference business has been criticized by some of the organization’s long-time members, Waltcher acknowledged.

“There are definitely people who are concerned about doing anything different,” he said. “That’s normal to any group. There is some aspect of thinking back to the past, some nostalgia.”

A regional alternative healing arts group has used the center for conferences recently, but Waltcher said the center’s business base likely will expand beyond “like-minded” organizations.

“People don’t have to go to our church, so to speak,” Waltcher said. “We are open for business, and we are looking for matches, but there is no real blueprint for this. It could be 30 to 40 people from the Budweiser factory, too.”