By Bill Strother 331-4265 |
bstrother@heraldt.comAfter a one-year hiatus, the hotel and restaurant at Fourwinds Resort and Marina are being prepared to reopen for the season.
The restaurant and food and beverage operations is scheduled to reopen the week of March 16, and the 123-room hotel will reopen the second weekend of April, according to Jeff Hammond, the resort’s general manager.
Neither the restaurant nor the hotel opened last year because the complex was in the process of changing ownership, Hammond said.
Those negotiations fell apart and the sale was never consummated, he said, but by that time the season had already been lost.
The marina, home for 900 boats that dock there, has been in continuous operation, Hammond said, and the marina also has a large seasonal boat rental operation.
Fourwinds, the largest privately operated recreational complex on the lake, was built in the 1970s. Its current owner is Traina Enterprises of Atlanta.
Hammond said that now that the ownership issue is settled — the offer that fell through was unsolicited and the resort was never actually placed on the market, he said — planning for the new season is under way.
He said this is the first season in recent years that the hotel had been closed for the winter, although in the past the restaurant sometimes shut its doors with the arrival of cold weather.
Fourwinds is now in the process of hiring seasonal staff, including housekeepers, servers, food service personnel and office staff. Hammond said the resort typically employs up to 110 workers in various capacities during high season.
Even with mostly seasonal service sector jobs, the resort makes a substantial contribution to the local economic picture, Hammond said. “Are all of the jobs $100,000 a year jobs? No, of course not,” he said. But “our jobs are certainly things that can’t be exported. If you’re going to be traveling to Bloomington, Indiana, certainly the front office (staff), the room — it’s not an exportable situation.”
“We’re very much looking forward to the summer season and being back in full operational mode instead of being in the middle of trying to complete a sale,” he said.
Given the current economic climate, the hotel and restaurant likely will operate on a seasonal basis rather than year-round, Hammond said, nor will the hotel complex undertake significant remodeling for the same reason.
“At this point, we’re working to kind of get ourselves prepared for the summer season and see what we can make of it, see what’s going to happen with the travel economy.”
Boat rentals will begin the first of April.
Economy a question this year
Hammond said last year’s boating season was affected by a double whammy of high water levels and 2008’s high fuel prices.
This year, he’s waiting to see how the national economic picture plays out for local tourism.
The question will not be limited to how many people stay home, but how many will choose to stay closer to home instead of heading for the Caribbean.
Staying close could be good news for the lake, which is within an hour of Indianapolis and within a few hours drive of several other major population centers, including Louisville, Evansville and Cincinnati.
Damon Cappy, general manager of Lake Monroe Boat Rental at Paynetown farther east on the lake, agreed that too much water last year affected business. “The high water was such a difficult thing because it lasted into July,” he said.
His operation also will open April 1, timed to catch the IU student business during the spring, with the summer season seeing more families.
Both rental locations carry an array of boats, from double deckers to jet skis and on down to kayaks.
Cappy said his location serves a somewhat different group than the Fourwinds, which is nearer Ind. 37 and quick access to Indianapolis. Paynetown, with a large state campground, caters to campers and to people from Brown County and Columbus, as well as to the large population of students in Bloomington who live east of the IU campus.
“We’re only about eight minutes from the mall — six miles from Third Street,” Cappy said. And “we hope that some of the folks that may have done their vacations in Florida or Tennessee will stay closer to home.” Even with a down national economy, he added, “If the weather cooperates, I would hope (the season) would be at least as good as last year.”
Promotional dollars endangered?
Fourwinds’ hotel/restaurant season is guaranteed a better year than in 2008, when their doors remained closed.
But Hammond at Fourwinds worries that if state cuts to tourism promotion dollars — one proposal would slash state spending 50 percent — the word that things are happening at the lake will be more difficult to get out to people.
“We think it’s pretty regrettable to see cuts taking place in that area when that is a revenue generating area and not an expense area,” he said.
Mike McAfee, director of the Monroe County Visitor and Convention Bureau, agreed that state dollars to support tourism are important — although there’s never been a lot to start with. He said Indiana’s state tourism office is among the smallest in the country already and cuts to spending will mean that much less help in selling Lake Monroe and other Monroe County attractions to visitors.
The Indiana Convention and Visitors Bureau Association recently measured the return on such expenditures and found that every dollar invested in promotion brings $15 into the Indiana economy.
“It pays right away,” he said, but admitted the current slowdown is threatening many services. “It’s tough not to invest in that, but there are tough choices out there.”
He said his office, funded by the county’s 5 percent innkeeper’s tax, is continuing its effort to sell the lake and its amenities to visitors.
“That outdoor recreation aspect is definitely one of the three or four biggest things that we have to promote,” McAfee said. “That lake is a treasure. There’s nothing like it in the Midwest.”
He’s happy the Fourwinds is set to reopen. “I think that place has the potential to be a gold mine again when the market really comes back. It’s just an incredible location to be on the lake and be 15 minutes from Bloomington.
“Definitely we just look forward to them opening back up. It’ll be great.”
Lake activity down last summer
By one measure at least, last year’s combination of high water and high gas prices reduced activity at Lake Monroe by more than 10 percent.
Indiana Department of Natural Resources reservoir specialist Phil Wilson said Monroe’s revenue from all sources was down 11.7 percent in 2008. The DNR, which manages the lake, collects gate and camping fees and sells annual property passes, and fees from concessions at the lake, with last year’s revenue totaling about $1.27 million.
He said at one point last summer season, the lake was 17.1 feet above normal pool, which put it only a foot below the spillway. The lake was never closed to boaters — the DNR advised extra caution to avoid new underwater obstacles or floating debris — but many access roads, campgrounds, parking lots and boat ramps were closed by the high water.
He thinks gas prices had some but not as substantial an effect, with perhaps more boaters anchoring rather than burning fuel, but still getting out on the water.
Right now, the lake is at normal pool and he expects activity will be picking up near the end of the month, and gate fee collections will begin.
The DNR controls the land around the lake and leases the Fourwinds property to the company that operates it, he said. “We’re hoping they succeed because it’s always better for us,” Wilson said. So long as it fits within the DNR mission, he added, “What’s good for the Fourwinds is good for us.”
Wilson said the Fourwinds marina, the largest inland marina in the world when it was built, is robust and still a very large facility.
