A deluxe wilderness getaway

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Artist's conception (above and below) shows the $127-million Narrows West Hotel and water park complex couple plans to build on Lake Manitoba.

An Interlake entrepreneur who has led a burgeoning cottage- lot development in the largely undeveloped area of Lake Manitoba known as The Narrows is preparing a massive, $127-million hotel and year-round water- park complex for the area.

The Narrows West Hotel and water park project will include a twin-tower, 198-room hotel and conference centre with two dining rooms and a 32,500-square- foot water park that will include water slides and a small wave pool.

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The hotel complex is adjacent to an 18-hole golf course that is under construction -- and it's all in addition to the family-operated Lake Manitoba Narrows Lodge and more than 400 cottage lots Chad Olafson and his wife Brandee have quietly developed in The Narrows during the past seven years.

"We're effectively building a new town," Olafson, 33, said of various projects that seem to be taking up every acre of The Narrows. "It's the largest development in the province outside the city of Winnipeg."

The Olafsons have, until recently, managed to build their little empire under the radar. They chose an area of the province that is little travelled -- two hours northwest of downtown Winnipeg, off highways 6 and 68.

The area is known as The Narrows because it's in an area where Lake Manitoba narrows in the middle. A bridge on Highway 68 across Lake Manitoba connects the lodge and a smaller family cottage-lot development to the hotel complex, golf course and two other, larger cottage developments.

Chad Olafson's family ties to the area go back 100 years and he and his family make their year-round home there, in an area now being developed as The Narrows West Ranch Estates -- a 60-lot development -- and a few minutes drive from the hotel project site and the lodge.

The family operated quietly until about a year ago, when it became front-page news that one of the buyers in the company's new 330-lot development was actor and Sopranos star James Gandolfini.

Olafson said he had originally planned the hotel complex for another few years in the future, but he said it was the buyers of the cottage lots that sped up the project.

"A lot of the (cottage-lot) buyers are from Alberta and when they saw what we have and what we wanted to do, they were eager to invest," Olafson said.

Gandolfini and his family have bought lots in the area, Olafson said, but the actor is not an investor in the hotel project.

Olafson said that because the site of the hotel complex is largely virgin land, crews will spend this summer clearing and preparing the site.

Construction is expected to begin in the spring of 2010, with completion set for the fall of 2011 or spring of 2012.

Olafson said the family has held talks with local and provincial officials, but added that only the 18-hole golf course has received an environmental licence. Planning approvals are still required for the hotel and water-park project.

A series of open houses are slated to begin in Winnipeg May 4 and in the communities of Ste. Rose du Lac, Eddystone and Ashern in the following days.

Olafson said the open houses will provide area residents and other interested parties an opportunity to see what the family has planned and to answer any questions.

He said the hotel complex is planned as a year-round resort, adding the conference facilities and the indoor water park should prove to be a strong lure, not just for Winnipeg residents but for others from across the province.

The family isn't stopping with the hotel project. Also on the drawing board are a condominium development alongside the new golf course, a business park and a retail mall.

The golf course and lodge will employ 100 people full-time and the new hotel complex will bring in an additional 170 jobs, he said.

aldo.santin@freepress.mb.ca

The history

CHAD Olafson's ties to The Narrows goes back 100 years, when his family settled there.

His maternal grandparents, Peter and Winnie Stasiuk, started the fishing lodge on the site of the new lodge. His paternal grandpar­ents, Gudjon and Rita Olafson, owned the ranch that surrounds the resort. His parents later bought both the ranch and the lodge and he, in turn, bought the family ranch and the lodge from his parents.

Olafson formed Narrows West Inc., owned with his wife, Brandee, and subsequently brought in three partners to enable the expansion.

Open houses

Winnipeg

May 4 and 8, Noon - 9 p.m., Narrows West showroom, 924 St. James St.

Ste. Rose du Lac

May 5 Town Hall 5-8 p.m.

Eddystone,

May 6 Community Hall, 5-8 p.m.

Ashern,

May 7 Community Hall, 5-8 p.m.

Narrows West Lodge,

May 9 lodge restaurant 2-5 p.m.

Other projects:

Lake Manitoba Narrows Lodge and chalets Narrows West 1st Subdivision: 86-lot development adja­cent to the lodge and south of the proposed hotel and water park complex.

Narrows West 2nd subdivision: 720-acres, 330-lot development, adjacent to the hotel complex.

Narrows West Ranch Estates: 60 cottage lots north of the hotel complex.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 25, 2009 A3