Visitors to North Battleford have noticed some big changes to the skyline in the southeast quadrant recently.
The Credit Union CUplex buildings have been there for a few years, but now, just down the street on Carlton Trail, the 105-room Comfort Inn and Suites hotel structure is an imposing new addition to the area.
Down the street, between Territorial Drive and 114th Street, construction is underway for a new Holiday Inn.
Together, these are the first hotels to be built in North Battleford since Gold Eagle Lodge in 2006.
Exciting Times: Bater
When the Comfort Inn held its grand opening last Thursday, the man with the biggest smile in the room was Ryan Bater, who does double-duty both as mayor of North Battleford and as executive director of the tourism organization Destination Battlefords.
“I’m not exaggerating when I say it was very exciting for people living here to see this property being built. And it’s exciting to see the other property being built,” said Bater.
“It’s exciting to see the work downtown. There’s a cinema being built. I just love driving around the city seeing this stuff. It makes me feel really good, it makes us all feel really good. And yeah, it’s just a great time to be living here.”
While the sudden interest in hotel investment in the Battlefords might seem out of the blue, it is no accident. Instead, it is a byproduct of wider ambitions by the tourism and hotel industries to turn North Battleford into an event-hosting powerhouse.
To meet those ambitions, they needed two things, said Bater. One was facilities, and “we have strong facilities.”
For North Battleford, those were already in abundance, due to the arrival earlier this decade of the Credit Union CUplex and its four components — theatre, curling centre, field house and aquatic centre.
But also needed was “hotel room availability,” said Bater.
That was easier said than done. For the past decade, that effort could be summed up by the phrase “all talk, no action.”
There had been no shortage of interest, the issue was translating that into shovels in the ground.
Stalled Initiatives
In 2009 and 2010, Battlefords Tribal Council floated plans to add 100 rooms to the existing Gold Eagle Lodge, as well as development of an adjoining shopping mall, a First Nations Heritage Park and the replacement of the existing Gold Eagle Casino building itself.
What ended up getting the go-ahead was a scaled-down project to expand and renovate the existing casino, completed in 2015. The other plans, including the additional 100 hotel rooms, remained on the shelf.
In 2013, numbered company 600653 SK Ltd was granted a tax exemption by City Hall for a proposed 80-room hotel in the southeast quadrant. That also never got past the proposal stage.
While those ideas fizzled out, there were some upgrades to existing properties, including a rebranding of the Happy Inn to the Travelodge on 101st Street, as well as the expansion of the Super 8 (now Lone Star Hotel) along Highway 16.
Destination Battlefords
The key moment behind launching North Battleford towards becoming an event-hosting destination came in March of 2013, when the Battlefords Tourism and Convention Association approved changes to transform the organization into a much larger one.
It would eventually take the name Destination Battlefords. It is a full-service marketing organization responsible not only for tourism, but also “destination marketing.” That included attracting events as well as business opportunities to the area.
Fully on board was the Battlefords Hotels Association. Initially, six properties voluntarily committed to contributing to the new organizational structure through a one per cent destination marketing fee, levied to customers.
Bater said the levy is dedicated towards “attracting events and to support existing events that are looking to expand. So, really, [it is] a way to use the destination marketing fund to our advantage to give us resources we didn’t have before.”
Comfort Inn Launched
Finally, after years of false starts, it was in 2015 that the Comfort Inn project was announced as the first new hotel build since 2006.
The project was backed by North Battleford Hospitality L.P., made up of CCR Hospitality/BCP Construction and approximately 20 to 25 local investors.
Terracap Group, owners of Frontier Centre, was also in the investment group. In Terracap’s case, they had been on the lookout for potential developers at their shopping centre property.
“It’s badly needed,” said Terracap CEO Larry Krauss at the sod-turning in 2016. “We feel North Battleford is under served in terms of hotel rooms, so we wanted to contribute to having a hotel brought to the area.”
At their grand opening Thursday, the CEO of CCR Hospitality/BCP construction, Billy Coles, repeated that same theme. The indication is that the investors saw a great opportunity to provide the market with something new.
“North Battleford has been seen as underdeveloped for a long time, with just one hotel developed in 15 years,” said Coles.
“North Battleford needed new rooms. A lot of the inventory is old, and just older. And people are looking for a nicer place to stay.”
In doing their research, Coles said it was determined the North Battleford market could accommodate two new hotels. They wanted to be the first ones in, he said.
The building permit was issued for the project in June 2017 for a value of $10.5 million. Construction transpired in an intriguing way. Units were pre-built by BCP Construction in Three Hills, Alta., and shipped to North Battleford to be stacked. The modular units started arriving in December 2017.
The hope had been to complete the project in time for the 2018 Winter Games, but the completion date was pushed back. A decision was made after the start of construction to switch to insulated concrete exterior walls, which Coles said made for a better building in the end.
“Compared to what we would have had before, it was a wise choice to wait to open six months with a much better product,” said Coles.
So far, Coles says the investors’ confidence in the project has been rewarded. The night before their grand opening, the Comfort Inn had no vacancies.
“We are seeing the numbers night in and night out, that we were very right to invest in here. Last night we were turning people away left, right and centre,” said Coles. “We anticipate that to be happening for a while.”
Holiday Inn and Suites
While the Comfort Inn and Suites hotel is now complete, the site south of Pioneer Avenue between Territorial Drive and 114th Street is now abuzz with construction activity for the new Holiday Inn and Suites.
Western Star Group of Hotels of Carlyle is behind that project. Western Star has several properties in the province’s southeast, including Regina and Estevan, but North Battleford will be their first venture outside the region. The land for the project was sold to Western Star by the City for $1 million.
In his proposal to the City in 2017, Western Star owner Gary Brar stated the new hotel would “provide a brand new facility largely based on servicing families and providing accommodations for teams that participate in tournaments and games in town.”
It is no coincidence that the Holiday Inn, like the Comfort Inn, is down the street from the Credit Union CUplex. Coles cites that facility as one reason Comfort Inn located on Carlton Trail.
“We chose the location that is close to the CUplex, close to the Walmarts of the world and the mall, Canadian Tire, all these different areas that usually draw customers that co-exist with each other and make for a great team of businesses.”
Still Digging
For the immediate future, the main challenge will be ensuring hotel rooms in the Battlefords stay filled. To that end, work goes on by Destination Battlefords to attract more and bigger events to the region.
So far, Destination Battlefords has been successful in attracting events starting with the 55+ Games and the Provincial Snowmobile Festival in 2016. The organization then landed the grand prize, the 2018 Saskatchewan Winter Games, in February 2016.
Twin Rivers Curling Club has also been aggressively pursuing events, landing the Pinty’s Grand Slam of Curling in 2017. That tour is making a return visit in January 2019 to the North Battleford Civic Centre.
While Bater stopped short of saying what else could be coming down the pike, he said Destination Battlefords has several irons in the fire for major events.
“We’ve been getting a lot of momentum on events, but there is a lot of economic activity throughout northwest Saskatchewan and a lot of companies use the Battlefords as a base. So it’s not just about tourism events or sporting events. It’s about regular activity, people doing business travel, that sort of thing, exploration businesses, crews coming in and out of northwest Saskatchewan … this just adds to our ability to host more people, so it’s great.”
The hotel activity coincides with a much broader building boom in the Battlefords in general.
Through the end of September, building permits had topped $23 million in North Battleford, already topping 2017’s grand total, and the Town of Battleford was reporting building permits of just under $27 million.
Mayor Bater says the new construction has lifted the spirits of people in the Battlefords.
“It’s a very exciting time to be here. There’s a lot going on and there’s no sign of stopping.”
