New hotel has Selkirk full of hope

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This article was published 24/05/2014 (4440 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SELKIRK — To you, maybe it’s just a hotel.

But to the people in this city, a half-hour’s drive north of Winnipeg, it’s a new day.

Selkirk has been trying to get a mid-range franchise hotel, in the style of a Comfort Inn or Super 8, practically since the automobile. For much of its history, people needing a place to stay have simply driven down the highway to Winnipeg instead.

Selkirk’s last hotel was built more than four decades ago. The current choices range from the Merchant Hotel, built in 1913, to the Selkirk Inn and Conference Centre, a single-storey, drive-to-your-door motel from the early 1970s.

Not that the Selkirk Inn is chopped liver, but it’s too small for the city to host some larger events. Selkirk ends up sending people either to Winnipeg or to the South Beach Hotel in Scanterbury to spend the night — and spend money on food and entertainment, said Mayor Larry Johannson.

Enter Alberta-based Canalta. The name is an amalgam of abbreviations for Canada and Alberta. Construction of the three-storey, 84-room Canalta Hotel has begun and is scheduled for completion this fall.

The Canalta name may sound familiar to Winnipeggers. Canalta tried to build a hotel and waterpark at The Forks a few years ago. Councillors reacted positively at first but headed for the hills when public outcry questioned the appropriateness of a waterpark on the historic site. Instead of going home empty-handed, broker John Pearson of Shindico Realty Inc. suggested Canalta visit Selkirk, a community he knew had been the perennial bridesmaid for a new hotel. Canalta, with 40 hotels in Alberta and Saskatchewan, liked what it saw. And Selkirk didn’t have to put up incentives.

“The mentality has been we can’t do a lot of things here because Winnipeg is too close,” said the first-term mayor.

But Selkirk has been doing a lot of things lately. A drive down Manitoba Avenue West highlights its new $5.2-million Gaynor Family Regional Library, the refurbished Selkirk Mental Health Centre and the Selkirk Crossing shopping centre with a bevy of big-box stores, plus one of the province’s new Quick Care Clinics designed to take the pressure off emergency rooms. That’s in addition to the Canalta Hotel at the end of Manitoba Avenue at Highway 9.

Elsewhere in the city is a new condominium development at 330 Main St., and a seniors block called Cambridge House. There’s also the 264-unit Parkside Terrace twin apartment complex near completion, nicknamed the “water tower development” because of its proximity to the water tower that puts Selkirk’s name on the skyline. There’s also the new $130-million hospital going up that will have the Interlake’s first MRI.

Selkirk has even started up a one-route, two-bus public transit service, with bike racks on the front for cyclists.

The affable Johannson seems to know just about everyone in Selkirk. He frequently waves to people on the street. He greets many more constituents at his job as assistant manager at the local Safeway. “I will talk with anybody and everybody. My door is always open. I think part of my success is I give everybody time,” he said.

Johannson pulled a major upset in the last civic election, defeating incumbent mayor David Bell. Johannson’s promise to bring more development to Selkirk, including a hotel, rang true with people in Selkirk, whose population has been stuck for decades at about 9,500 while other cities such as Steinbach and Winkler passed it in size.

But of all the new development taking place, it’s the hotel that has got tongues wagging. “It’s a catalyst for other great things to come. It opens up unrealized potential,” said Sheri Skalesky, executive director of the Selkirk BIZ, which represents Selkirk and the RMs of St. Andrews, St. Clements and West St. Paul.

“It’s the biggest thing that’s happened in a long time. People talk about it a lot,” said Johannson. “The hotel will do for the local tourism business what the Walmart did on the commercial side.”

People from Selkirk say not all the credit goes to the current administration, that the previous council started some projects. But a great deal has come to fruition during the current council’s term.

Johannson is also wont to dream. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if another hotel is built after Canalta. “There’s a chance of a waterfront hotel with a marina,” he said. “We’ve got a bit of a rebirth happening. We haven’t seen a boom like this since the 1970s.”

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca