March 4, 2024

A four-story boutique hotel and entertainment venue are part of a major new development planned in Harrisburg.

The development group envisions the 11-acre project, which is south of Country Apple Orchard and adjacent to The Meadow Barn and The Veranda, as a downtown or lifestyle center-inspired setting.

“Harrisburg doesn’t really have a downtown like most small towns do,” said Aundrea Albertsen, whose background is in hotel development, management and design. “Our vision is to eventually create a small-town downtown area where people who are coming in from out of town — whether it be for a wedding or other event — have lodging, a restaurant, a family activity center, and to just keep growing the area.”

Albertsen is part of a development group that includes her sisters, Heather Jacobson and Megan Nichols, who live in Sioux Falls, and her brother, Brent Thurman, who is a contractor in Oregon. She and her brother have worked together in the hospitality industry for more than two decades.

They built the Homewood Suites in Sioux Falls and did interior design and management for the Hilton Garden Inn in Sioux City, Albertsen said. Their portfolio currently includes a Hilton Garden Inn and Hyatt Place in West Des Moines, which they own and manage.

The siblings got connected with Ryan Olson, vice president of BHI Construction and co-owner of the property in Harrisburg. It’s at the south edge of the orchard next to The Meadow Barn at Willow Street and Minnesota Avenue.

“I think it’d be a great addition to the community of Harrisburg, especially as fast as it’s growing,” Olson said. “The hotel is going to be the first piece, and I think it’s really going to help drive development on the whole west side of town.”

The development team is experienced enough in hospitality that “they’re going to go their own on this one” without a national brand, he continued. “We’ve known each other for years, and just in casual conversation, we started talking about it, and it came together as a concept from there.”

The current design calls for a four-story, 70-room boutique hotel with all suite-style rooms and a restaurant on the first floor that could have an outside operator.

“It’s not going to be a modern hotel from the outside,” Albertsen said. “We want to stick with the environment we’re building in. We’ve got the orchard, we’ve got The Meadow Barn, we’ve got The Veranda, and we want it to be warm, welcoming, cozy and feel like it’s been there and we didn’t come in and disrupt the area.”

Concepts for what she called a family entertainment venue are still being finalized but likely would include a mix of indoor-outdoor recreation activities.

The balance of the property shows multiple commercial buildings that could be retail centers, restaurants or other services.

“Generally, Harrisburg continues to thirst for more retail,” said Marcus Mahlen, senior vice president at NAI Sioux Falls and board chair of the Harrisburg Economic Development Corp. “The retail future is really strong on Minnesota Avenue up and down that Harrisburg corridor, and this is kind of the front end of that.”

The economic development group invested in a hotel feasibility study last year, which concluded the market could support a hotel. The most likely scenario would have been a slightly smaller limited-service property.

“We gave it to several developers, and we’d like to think this had a good kick-start to the project,” Mahlen said. “The community has always wanted and needed a hotel. It’s been talked about for years.”

In addition to guests at the nearby event venues, the hotel likely will support out-of-town guests coming to stay with the growing number of new residents in town, he said.

“They need beds in town for people to stay to keep some of that sales tax and activity in Harrisburg,” he said. “It’s a key tool the community will have to be able to continue to grow.”

From a regional lens, “it’s exciting to see some of these puzzle pieces come together as Harrisburg continues to grow,” said Tyler Tordsen, president and CEO of Sioux Metro Growth Alliance. “For the population — the visitors and the residents — having this amenity in the community is long overdue.”

The venue even could become a staycation spot for local families, he added.

“It’s such a strategic location as you get closer to the interstate, and with all the road construction to handle that kind of traffic being completed, it makes it a good time to go in.”

Harrisburg is making infrastructure improvements in the area to allow ground work to start for the hotel development yet this year, the development team said. Once vertical construction starts, it’s about a year to open the hotel.

“We’re just really excited to bring some needed elements to Harrisburg — restaurants and hotel and shopping,” Albertsen said. “We’re excited to work with The Meadow Barn — they’re great people, and they’ve been super helpful with this whole process — and just give Harrisburg a place to be.”