Hotel coming to Austin
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/07/2020 (2096 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Nearly seven months after completing a hotel in Rivers, a new hotel chain has set its sights on another Westman community for an upcoming expansion.
Blue Crescent Motels, which opened the first hotel in its chain on Jan. 20, wants to build a similarly sized location in Austin, about 80 kilometres east of Brandon.
Saskatchewan-based Steel Creek Developers has earmarked a location along the north side of the Trans-Canada Highway in the community, next to the Co-op gas bar.
Company vice-president and part owner Trevor Rempel told the Sun on Wednesday that they’re just looking for a few more investors to sign onto the project before it can begin.
“Ideally, we’d like to have our foundation in before freeze-up,” he said. “That gives us the ability to place the modules once they are complete on the factory floor and put that building up during the winter. We can start building in winter, but it’s more complicated, takes more time, more expensive, that sort of thing.”
When finished, the hotel will have 30 guest rooms, a lobby, a continental breakfast area, a fitness room and a meeting room.
Rempel said there are several benefits to that location that might not be immediately apparent to people driving by on the highway.
“In winter, it’s one of the locations where the RCMP will close the highway if there’s a severe winter storm,” he said. “Having a hotel at a highway closure site is beneficial to travellers.”
Rempel speculated that the nearby Manitoba Agricultural Museum would be able to expand the events it holds, such as the annual Threshermen’s Reunion and Stampede, by having more immediate access to accommodations for guests.
Because of the proximity to communities such as Gladstone, Carberry, Holland and MacGregor, the hotel would be useful to people coming to those communities for events and sports tournaments as well, he said.
While the hotel will be the second Blue Crescent location in Manitoba, it won’t be the second in the chain. That honour is going to Grenfell, Sask., where a hotel is expected to open in the next few weeks.
Depending on the progress of some other projects in the works but not ready to be unveiled, the location in Austin might not even be the third in the province, according to Rempel.
Rempel said the chain is likely to remain Prairie-focused as it expands.
» cslark@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @ColinSlark