Rivers Hotel to be up and running by 2020

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This article was published 25/05/2019 (2349 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Rivers will once again have a hotel, just in time for the 2020 Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

“We’re looking at two main customer groups,” said Trevor Rempel, vice-president of sales and marketing for Steel Creek Developers, a family-owned company that specializes in seniors complexes and hotels.

“Obviously, CN is going to be a significant business for us (with its work crews), and then the business that the community centre is going to bring into town for hockey tournaments, curling bonspiels and that sort of thing,” Rempel said in a telephone interview Friday.

Rempel said out-of-town visitors, Via Rail passengers and outpatients undergoing rehab at the local hospital for such things as knee or hip surgeries would also be potential guests.

The $4.7-million hotel will have 30 rooms and employ about a dozen full- and part-time staff. The front desk will be staffed 24 hours a day.

It is owned by a shareholder group from Rivers and other parts of the province. Steel Creek also has a stake in the hotel.

Although it will serve a continental breakfast for guests, the hotel will not have a restaurant or lounge, since both are already available nearby, Rempel said.

The hotel will offer several different types of rooms to accommodate the specific needs of its customers.

The standard rooms will follow the same model as the company’s recently opened hotel in Souris, Rempel said.

Instead of side-by-side beds in a room, they are separated by a bathroom, and each bed has its own TV.

“That gives each side of the hotel room some privacy,” Rempel said. “It works out really well for parents with young kids or tradespeople whose company doubles them up in rooms.”

There will also be single rooms with a bed on one side of the washroom and a seating area on the other and three suites, featuring a separate bedroom with a queen-size bed and a main area with another bed and queen pullout.

“We’re trying something new with this one,” Rempel said, adding the hotel will also have two family rooms, replacing the queen bed on one side with two bunk beds.

“So we can sleep four kids in their own beds, essentially.”

Rempel noted the hotel will be ideal for visiting sports teams, offering storage for hockey bags and a special room where young players can hit balls off the wall without disturbing the other guests.

There will also be a small fitness area and a meeting room for teams and others to gather.

The modular project will be completed in two parts.

Construction will start at the beginning of July in the Grandeur Housing Ltd. factory in Winkler before moving the hotel on-site.

“We’re going to do the foundation, and then in late October, in two days, we’ll have the building up,” Rempel said.

Finishing work will then have to be done, with an opening date of January 2020.

The Scotties curling tournament will be held Jan. 28 to Feb. 2.

Rivers Mayor Todd Gill applauded the news of a new hotel for the small community about 40 kilometres northwest of Brandon.

“Of course, we’re excited about it,” Gill said. “I mean, it’s been a long time since Rivers had a hotel.”

The last one was destroyed in a fire in the 1990s.

“We certainly think it will be a nice complement to our community.”

Steel Creek Developers is behind the construction of the GO Souris Hotel & Murray Building Active Adult Residence in Souris.

The company is also planning to build a six-unit housing complex for seniors in Melita.

A plan to build a 60-room hotel in Neepawa did not materialize, Rempel said. The plan had also called for the construction of 18 two-bedroom apartments for retirees and empty-nesters.

 

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