With only a few details remaining, the Canyon Crest Dining and Event Center is nearing completion.

Those details are what sets Twin Fall's new meeting venue apart from the others.

The event center, the brainchild of Dan Willie, owner of the Stop N Go convenience store chain, features waterfalls, luminescent glass sculpture and a bar fashioned from walnut and granite.

The restaurant decor resembles a desert lodge with 30-foot vaulted ceilings and a large stone fireplace.

But it's the convention center's sweeping views of the Snake River Canyon and the Perrine Bridge that are the heart of the Canyon Crest, said Willie.

"This took a lot of risk and sometimes I would wake up at night and think 'what I am I doing,'" he said from the convention center's terraced balcony overlooking the canyon. "But every time I would come out here and look at the view, I would know that it was all worth it."

Willie planned a $6.5 million project but the actual cost topped $7 million. Financing was a challenge, he said, but the real struggle was to complete the project in time for summer events.

Don Hall, facility event director, said the Starr Corp. broke ground in May 2007 and is expected to complete final touches within two days of its deadline.

When completed the restaurant and convention center will boast a multiuse facility that will include:

• A lounge that can serve 85 people.

• A restaurant twith seating for 135.

• A 400-seat convention center with a state-of-the-art audio-video system.

• Three kitchens where as many as 24 cooks can serve 400 people in 15 to 20 minutes.

"I've been in a lot of kitchens in south Idaho, including Boise, but this is the best equipped kitchen that I've ever seen,"said Dave Haley, executive chef.

Above the restaurant and convention center is an intimate private dining room where guests can have their own chef, waitress and balcony with a canyon view.

The dining and convention center is scheduled to open April 14. Hall said about 90 events are scheduled within the first year.

"I think that's a pretty good indication that there is a demand for this type of thing in Twin Falls," Willie said.

Joshua Palmer may be reached at 208-735-3231.