Fitness center and hotel vying for liquor license

Council may have to choose between businesses

Posted 11/13/18

Could a Lovell-based fitness center be expanding into Powell? It may depend on what the Powell City Council decides to do with its last available retail liquor license.

Stacy Bair, who co-owns …

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Fitness center and hotel vying for liquor license

Council may have to choose between businesses

Posted

Could a Lovell-based fitness center be expanding into Powell? It may depend on what the Powell City Council decides to do with its last available retail liquor license.

Stacy Bair, who co-owns Lovell’s Club Dauntless with her husband Devin, told the council last week that she’s exploring the possibility of opening a fitness center on the west side of Powell in the Gateway West business park.

“We have 82 members from Powell,” Bair said at the Nov. 5 meeting. “In my opinion, if we have 82 people from this community that are willing to drive 30 miles to get a workout at Club Dauntless [in Lovell], to me it’s indicative that you have a need ... for this type of facility here.”

However, there’s a catch: Part of the Bairs’ plans for the Powell fitness center include at least some elements of a sports bar, and Bair said they would need a liquor license to make the project financially feasible.

“We worked the numbers as much as we could,” she said. “I talked to my accountant, and at every turn, they would say, ‘We want to do this hon, but we’ve got to find another way to make it make more [money].’”

So what’s the problem? Powell currently has just one retail liquor license available — and the planned hotel and convention center that’s also set to open in Gateway West, known as Clocktower Inn of Powell, has applied for that license as well. Clocktower Inn submitted its application on Nov. 5, while Bair submitted her application for the club on Oct. 19.

The city has been advertising the availability of the last liquor license, asking for any other interested businesses to apply by no later than Friday.

With at least two strong businesses in the running, the Powell City Council could have a hard choice to make in the near future. At the city’s request, the State Loan and Investment Board agreed to provide a $2.62 million grant to provide initial funding for the conference center portion of the Clocktower Inn project. The new hotel facility is something that Powell Economic Partnership has been seeking for years as an economic boost for Powell.

“It puts the council in a difficult position, because obviously, the state, the city, everybody’s invested in moving the hotel and convention center project forward,” Powell Mayor John Wetzel said in a Friday interview. “But we also have to weigh all the factors in economic development and fairness in where these licenses land.”

The council has “got a tough decision coming forward,” he said.

A city can only issue so many retail liquor licenses, with the limit based on population (if Powell has gained another 200 or so people at the time of the 2020 Census, the city will receive an additional license, Wetzel said).

However, there are ways to potentially solve the problem. One of the entities — either the fitness center or the hotel and conference center — can request a restaurant liquor license, but that requires at least 60 percent of the establishment’s gross sales come from food service.

Yet another possibility would be for the conference center to have its events catered and obtain liquor licenses for each event, which is what’s currently done at the city-owned Commons in downtown Powell.

Wetzel said all of the parties involved participated in a Thursday conference call with the state liquor division in an attempt to find a path forward.

“I’ve got to believe there’s a creative way to make this work,” he said.

Club Dauntless opened in Lovell in December 2017, offering more than 40 classes for all age groups, a full fitness center that includes several cardio machines and a full weight training area. However, Bair said the Powell facility would offer more amenities, including a smoothie bar, tanning beds and expanded massage therapy — and the golf simulator.

“Golf simulation is taking off,” Bair said. “It’s really big in Billings, it’s really big in Casper. We feel that between the Powell community, Lovell and Cody ... it would bring a higher-end recreational activity to Powell, particularly in the winter months when there’s not a lot [happening].”

Bair said that the golf simulator portion of the Powell fitness center would be called Dauntless Club — a flip-flop of the fitness center’s name.

“We haven’t exactly decided if it’s golf simulation that happens to be a sports bar, or if it’s a sports bar that happens to have golf simulation,” Bair said. “We don’t feel like golf simulation on its own is enough — and most people that golf will agree that you can’t golf, be it fake or real, without alcohol.”

If Club Dauntless does receive a liquor license and expand into Powell, Bair said construction could begin April 1, opening by Nov. 1, 2019.

“Because we also own a construction company, we’re uniquely qualified to do it,” Bair said, referring to Bairco Construction. “Right off the bat, we can build 10 percent cheaper than anyone [else] could, simply on the fact that we don’t need the construction oversight that anyone else would need.”

The Powell City Council is set to hold a public hearing on the Dauntless Club and Clocktower Inn of Powell liquor license applications at the start of its regular Dec. 3 meeting.

—Tribune Editor CJ Baker contributed reporting

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