Hospitality Associates Adds Landmark Sandpoint Motel To Its Stable

The “Best Western” logo continues to dominate the lodging industry news this week.

While it was announced Monday that Templin’s (Best Western) Resort in Post Falls would become Cavanaughs Templin’s Resort, Connie’s Best Western Motor Inn in Sandpoint also was purchased by Hospitality Associates, a Spokane-based company that owns and/or operates 35 lodging businesses in the Northwest. Cavanaughs also is based in Spokane.

Although Hospitality Associates has leased Connie’s the past few years, the Sandpoint sale was final for the new year. It includes a building in the southwest corner of Fifth and Cedar as well as the adjacent Connie’s 53-unit motel, 250-seat restaurant and lounge.

Former Connie’s owner Lorraine Bowman speculated that Hospitality Associates will replace the corner building, which includes Snappy’s Photo and Spud’s Restaurant, with 16 to 18 additional motel units. She and her husband Bill, who died in 1994, planned to similarly expand the motel, she said.

Expansion is nothing new to Connie’s. Before the mid-1950s it was a gas station and five-stool coffee shop with the trolley to LaClede running in back. Then Conrad “Connie” Balch bought it and changed it into a drive-in where customers were served by employees on roller skates.

Loraine and Bill Bowman, originally from Gooding, Idaho, and Oregon City, Ore., respectively, bought Connie’s in 1972. They built 28 motel units in 1978 after they bought the neighboring Kaniksu. In 1985 they added another 25 units with a skywalk across the street to what had been a car lot. The deal included a trade of property along Highway 95 where Evegreen Ford relocated.

Although Connie’s isn’t the largest lodging in town in terms of the number of rooms (although it will be if the expansion happens), it probably is the largest in square feet, Lorraine said.

“The rooms are oversized; we really believed in quality,” she said. “The Andrus Suite (named for former Gov. Cecil Andrus) is very spacious.

“When he was no longer governor, he inquired if it still would have his name,” she said. “And when (entertainer) B.B. King stayed there, he exclaimed, ‘At last! A tub big enough for me!”’

Meanwhile, faithful readers won’t regard the sale of Templin’s to Cavanaugh’s as a surprise. It was mentioned in this column a month ago as a rumor that former owner Bob Templin at the time denied.

With all included businesses to center on auto-related interests, a 36,000-square-foot development cleverly called Car d’Lane is under construction at 5433 Government Way. The facility will be on a site just under four acres between Dalton Avenue and Silver Lake Car Wash in Coeur d’Alene.

The first building - a 6,000-square-foot gas station, convenience store and fast-food restaurant - will feature a ‘50s theme. It will include a drive-through window to serve the store and restaurant.

To be completed in late February, the restaurant will feature Italian foods, with sub-sandwiches. It will have up to 10 employees. A picnic area will be included on the property.

The second phase, scheduled for summer completion, will be a 30,000-square-foot, L-shaped automotive center, including a lube business and other automotive specialties. Real estate agents Tony Piscitelli and John Kelpin of Tomlinson Black North Idaho are fielding inquiries for available lease space. Phone 765-1000.

Atlas Building Center has always advertised that the most important thing it builds is customer trust.

Now the 50-year-old Coeur d’Alene company is remodeling its five-acre complex to help meet the heated competition from the “big-box boys.” Atlas, owned by Coeur d’Alene-based Idaho Forest Industries, is at Highway 95 and Kathleen Avenue.

The renovation, to be complete in April, includes a new store layout with 12-foot wide “power aisles” for viewing and access convenience; additional product lines and inventory expanding from about 25,000 items to 28,000; expansion from four to six cashier stands; new lighting and decorating, and expanded paint-mixing and key-cutting services.

Although the store is in “somewhat of a mess” during remodeling, as spokesman Tom Richards said, one new “power aisle” is in place on the east side of the store.

Atlas moved from its IFI site on Seltice Way to the new facility in the late 1970s. It includes 21,000 square feet of retail store and about 50,000 square feet of covered building materials. The business employs about 125 people during peak season.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Nils Rosdahl The Spokesman-Review