A planned expansion doubling the number of rooms at the Stikine Inn, Wrangell’s only operating hotel, has been delayed for at least a couple of years due to the current economic climate.
The business owners had purchased property from the borough to expand with 30 additional rooms and tourism-related retail space, co-owner Will Goodale reported to the state in the Stikine’s liquor license renewal application this winter.
The Stikine received a fill permit from the Army Corps of Engineers and had filled in an area for the hotel addition.
The owners were initially looking at a $3 million to $4 million expansion to build between 2020 and 2022, Jake Harris, co-owner and general manager, said Monday. He declined to speculate on a new timeline, but said in the current climate it may not be until 2025 that they move on an expansion.
“Who knows, it may evolve into a different project all together,” Harris said. “There is a lot that has happened in the last couple of years.”
In the current market of high building material prices and operating expenses, it’s cost-prohibitive to expand, he said. “We have to see where the bottom is before we make a commitment that large.”
Harris told the Sentinel in December he expected to face a 40% increase in his costs to operate the business this year.
The 34-room Stikine started as 18 rooms above the restaurant and bar when it opened in the 1970s, Harris said.
“It had doubled at one point, and hopefully we’ll double it again,” he said. As owners, they have to measure the heavy guest demand for three months of the summer season and figure out how to keep the mortgage paid the rest of the year, he said.
“We have to get through the next couple of years before we can start making big leaps and bounds again,” Harris said.
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