After being closed for almost two years, the former Quality Inn Hotel in downtown Prince Albert has re-opened under First Nations ownership.
The facility has been purchased by the Timanaska Development Corporation and the Saskatchewan River Business Corporation, which includes the Cumberland House Cree Nation as a partner.
In addition to standard hotel rooms, plans are for the facility to offer student housing and a 24-hour daycare.
The hotel is located in close proximity to the new University of Saskatchewan campus in Prince Albert.
CHCN Chief Rene Chaboyer said even though we are in the midst of an economy slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the shuttered hotel presented an investment opportunity the partners didn’t feel they could pass up.
“We kind of saw a diamond in the rough here with the opportunities,” he said. “Not only just the hotel at the time but our original plan was to turn this hotel into student housing and some easy living for some elders.”
The partners also plan to offer rooms in the facility for northern Saskatchewan residents who have come to Prince Albert for a few days for medical appointments.
The facility, which will now be operated under the name of Cumberland Crossing Inn, will also offer these guests transportation to and from Victoria Hospital for their appointments.
Orrin Greyeyes is a former band councillor for the Muskeg Lake Cree Nation.
He is also the current president and CEO of Timanaska Development.
Greyeyes said you have to think outside the box when it comes to investments like this one.
“This idea isn’t new,” he said. “In Muskeg, we did have a motel back in the early 90’s and it was basically the same formula that we’re putting together here. So, I knew we could make it successful, I knew we could make it work with the additions of the student housing and stuff like that.”
Chaboyer said in order to make the hotel a feasible operation, the partners realize they need to operate it as a mixed-used facility with a focus on helping northerners who come to Prince Albert for short, medium- and longer-term visits and need an affordable place to stay in the downtown core.
That said, the Cumberland House chief said they are willing to look at offering a number of services to make the facility a success but one thing is non-negotiable – there will be no alcohol permitted on premises.
“First and foremost, take the bar out and kind of make it a lot easier for First Nations to come and spend the night, spend the week – and students, they always need a place to stay,” he said.
About a year after the Quality Inn closed, the city took over the property for unpaid taxes of roughly $900,000.
This is now around the same price the city has sold the property to the new partners.
Prince Albert Mayor Greg Dionne said due to a changing economy in the city and downtown core, developers need to think differently in the ways they do things and a mixed-use facility is one such example.
“You have to rethink what you are going to do,” he said. “You look at our two shopping centres. They’re rethinking their position with a drastic change in the retail business sector and so they are rethinking, ‘Are we going to become a service centre?’ Most of them you will see they are putting services in. It is just sort of a sign of the times that these buildings, no matter what size they are, will be repurposed.”
Greyeyes said the partnership still needs to invest about three-quarters of a million dollars in renovations to get the facility up to where they want it to be.
Cumberland Crossing Inn held its official opening ceremony Monday morning.
(PHOTOS: Top, Cumberland House Cree Nation Chief Rene Chaboyer speaks at the official opening ceremony of the Cumberland Crossing Inn. Bottom, one of the currently available rooms at the new Cumberland Crossing Inn. Photos by Fraser Needham.)