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BY SUSAN ERLER
serler@nwitimes.com
219.462.5151 | Thursday, August 17, 2006 | (No comments posted.)
PORTAGE | A 100-room hotel set to formally open today hopes to attract visitors to a Bass Pro Shops store being built nearby, but also to lakefront activities and area industry giants.
"The location here in Portage has multiple demand generators, the steel mills being one of them," said David Swift, whose Swift Hospitality Group will manage the Country Inn & Suites at Ameriplex at the Port.
The Ameriplex site, at the crossroads of Interstate 94 and Ind. 249, is not far from manufacturers U.S. Steel, Mittal Steel Co. and other industries, and from the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore fronting Lake Michigan.
"When we identify a site for a hotel, the more demand generators there are, the better," Swift said.
"This location has multi-faceted demand generators, including both leisure and corporate travelers. Just the site itself is centrally located," he said.
"It's really relatively close to downtown Chicago, to Gary and to Merrillville," Swift said.
The Country Inn & Suites, a franchise of Carlson Hotels, will feature a family aquatic center with adult and kiddie pools and a game room, and rooms with microwaves and refrigerators, as well as beds with Swedish made mattresses, general manager Jokima Hiller said.
"The majority of our business is leisure, families visiting the Dunes or some other attraction in the area," Hiller said.
"I know that they anticipate the Bass Pro Shops will be a big attraction," Hiller said.
Corporate travelers to area industry are also top clients, Hiller said.
A grand opening today for the hotel, which opened unofficially in late July, will feature a steel link chain cutting rather than the traditional ribbon cutting, to symbolize the importance of industry, Hiller said.
The 130,000-square-foot Bass Pro Shops store under construction is expected to open in late 2006 or early 2007, featuring the Springfield, Mo.-based outdoor sporting goods retailer's line of hunting and fishing equipment.
A Longhorn Steakhouse is expected to open in late September at Ameriplex, developed by Holladay Properties, which owns the Country Inn & Suites.
Additional retail and commercial outlets are being sought for the site, Ameriplex vice president Tim Healy said.
The complex is also home to Silvent North America , a Hilton laundry service, Applied Industrial Technologies and other light industrial tenants.
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