New hotel, water park to replace Soaring Eagle Inn and Conference Center by 2011

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The Soaring Eagle Inn and Conference Center has big plans in store for the next few years.

The Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe said Tuesday that the inn, at 5665 E. Pickard St., will be torn down and replaced with a new hotel and indoor water park.

Demolition will start in March and construction will begin immediately afterward, said Mary Kilmer, spokeswoman for the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe’s Migizi Economic Development Co.

Kilmer said the Tribe is expecting 12 months of construction, and the new hotel and water park is planned to open in early 2011.

“(The renovations) will be a good thing for Soaring Eagle, Mount Pleasant and the surrounding communities,” Kilmer said. “All the feedback I’ve received so far has been excitement.”

The three-star, 120-room hotel will feature food and beverage facilities, a restaurant that overlooks the golf course and a 45,000-square-foot water park, Kilmer said.

The water park will feature various slides and rides, a snack bar, a retractable wall or roof to let sun in during the summer and an adult pool separate from the kid’s area, according to the company statement.

Kilmer said she was unsure of the project’s cost.

Moving forward

Kilmer said when the Tribe purchased the property, the intent was to demolish the existing hotel and build a family resort complex.

The original hotel was built in 1964 and Kilmer said when the Tribe bought it in 2007, the building was expected to be around for 10 years.

According to a press release, Bonnie Sprague, the Soaring Eagle Inn and Conference Center’s general manager, has been working to find employment opportunities at the casino for her staff, who will not be needed during the construction phase.

The existing 44-room Green Suites facility and the Holiday Greens Golf Course will remain open during the new hotel’s construction phase.

“We look forward to job creation and new economic opportunities for the members of the Tribe and the surrounding communities,” Sprague said in the release. “We can only imagine what the next 10 years will hold for us.”

The Migizi Economic Development Co. hired the Native American-owned Thalden Boyd Emery Architects to work on the project.

The new family resort complex is the third part of a three-part Isabella Expansion project proposed by the Tribe.

The first part is the Tribe’s expansion plans on the south side of Pickard Street and the second being mixed-use retail and commercial development on Tribal property on Pickard Street’s north side.