Cheney Holiday Inn Express owners Debbie and Brian Anderson have filed an application with the city’s Community Development Department to expand their 76-room hotel and conference center.
The proposed $3.5 million expansion would add 46 more guest rooms along with increasing the size and capabilities of the conference center to accommodate events of up to 200 people. The expansion is also part of a $1.5 million remodel of the existing hotel rooms and lobby spaces, bringing the total cost of the project to $5 million, all of which the Andersons have had to arrange financing for.
“We have to strip it out and do it all over,” Debbie Anderson said. “You’re not going to be able to tell the difference between the new part and the old.”
Anderson said the call to remodel the existing facility comes from the Holiday Inn Express corporate office, which is part of the Intercontinental Hotels Group. Hotels are required to redo their exteriors every 10 years, Anderson said, although in the Cheney hotel’s case that is coming a couple years early due to the expansion.
The expansion is needed because of the popularity of the hotel. Between March and October, Anderson said they have been experiencing over 100 days when all rooms are booked and occupied, and generally have been carrying a waiting list of sometimes 50 potential guests.
“This time of year, we’re sold out 4 – 5 days a week,” she added. “We’re just at that point where it’s time.”
According to the application’s environmental checklist, the building is architecturally constructed in the Northwest Lodge style with wood, stone and native landscaping. Additional landscaping around the building and at parking lot islands, along with a new stormwater run off swale, will be included with the expansion, which also adds 78 new parking stalls for a total of 220.
Once completed the hotel will employ 40 people, generating an estimated maximum of 180 vehicle trips per day.
Anderson said they hope to begin construction on the expansion by the end of the summer, with completion sometime in March 2016. Once the new rooms and spaces are operable, they would then begin the remodeling process on the existing rooms, redoing 25 rooms at a time.
The conference spaces, what Anderson referred to as “The Great Room,” along with the lobby will be remodeled separately over the next six months.
The application requires no public hearing as the site is zoned C-2, general commercial. Public comment on the proposed project closes at 5 p.m., Aug. 4. Comments may be directed to Brett Lucas, city planner, at blucas@cityofcheney.org.
John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.
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