Hotelier says Clocktower Inn will break ground in late summer

General contractor has been selected

Posted 2/27/20

The developer behind the proposed Clocktower Inn said Tuesday that he expects the project to break ground in August or September.

“That’s where we are at this particular time,” …

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Hotelier says Clocktower Inn will break ground in late summer

General contractor has been selected

Posted

The developer behind the proposed Clocktower Inn said Tuesday that he expects the project to break ground in August or September.

“That’s where we are at this particular time,” said hotelier Steve Wahrlich.

Wahlrich, of Billings, gave an update on the planned 75-room hotel and conference center during a Tuesday meeting of the Powell Economic Partnership (PEP) advisory board.

The roughly $10 million project — which was originally expected to break ground last summer — is a public-private partnership between the City of Powell and Wahrlich. The State of Wyoming agreed in 2018 to provide a $2.62 million grant for the conference center, which will be owned by the city and leased to and operated by Wahrlich; he’ll have an option to buy it from the city after 10 years.

Wahrlich reiterated Tuesday that the delay in the groundbreaking was due to him unexpectedly having to buy a restaurant that’s located in the middle of his Best Western hotel in Billings.

Last fall, Wahrlich explained to the Powell City Council that when the previous owners of Stella’s Kitchen and Bakery announced their retirement, he believed it was in his best interest to acquire and operate the resturant himself, rather than try to find new tenants. The acquisition was so time consuming, Wahrlich told the council, he had little time to work in the Powell Clocktower Inn project.

“I guess like all things they go up and down and back and forth,” Wahrlich said at Tuesday’s advisory board meeting.

He added that the restaurant will provide training for employees who will work at the Powell hotel.

Wahrlich said a general contractor has been selected for the project, though he declined to name the company on Tuesday. He said there has been extensive work done with the City of Powell in determining the property line, to delineate between the city-owned conference center and privately owned hotel.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s that difficult, but it is when you have two buildings that are joined together. And how do they match? Because the city is going to own one half the land and the partnership will own the other,” he explained.

Wahrlich said work also continues to refine the drawings for the building and work with the room dimensions; adding even 6 feet onto a room greatly increases the costs of the development, he said.

“We had to re-engineer some things along that line,” Wahrlich explained.

Tuesday’s PEP meeting was the last for the economic development organization’s outgoing executive director, Christine Bekes, who has championed the new hotel and conference center as a “game changer” for Powell.

Wahrlich said Bekes was instrumental in facilitating the project. 

“I probably wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Christine [Bekes],” Wahrlich said, adding, “She was the one I first met when I first came down here; she was the one who guided me through the processes within the state.”

The hotelier said Bekes “kept hounding me — she’s very good at that,” to which Bekes clarified with a laugh that she is “persistent.”

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