Oct. 21–FRENCH LICK — French Lick Resort marked the start of construction on a $15.5 million expansion of its event center with a ground-breaking ceremony Monday morning.
The expansion, which is expected to open in January of 2015, will connect to the resort’s existing 109,000-square-foot conference and event center at 8670 W. Ind. 56. New construction will total more than 58,000 square feet.
“It opens up a whole new group of companies that we can serve,” said Steve Ferguson, chairman of French Lick Resort’s parent company, Bloomington-based Cook Group.
“It also allows us to have two different groups at the same time,” he said. “It’s a tremendous opportunity.”
The event center expansion will include eight breakout rooms and a 22,000-square-foot ballroom. The ballroom will include three sections so it can be configured in different ways.
French Lick Resort’s existing conference and event center already has a 13,000-square-foot ballroom. It also has a 6,700-square-foot junior ballroom and 31,000-square-foot learning center and exhibit complex.
Financing for the $15.5 million expansion includes $9.3 million available through the New Markets Tax Credit Program. That’s a U.S. government program that allows investors to receive credits on their federal income tax returns for putting money into projects located in low-income communities.
Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank provided New Markets Tax Credit funding for the event center expansion. French Lick Resort financed the rest of the project, according to Robert Santa, its chief financial officer.
Cook Group’s Ferguson used Monday’s ground breaking as a chance to call for continued development in the French Lick area. The existing hotels, meeting space, spas, golfing and casino are enough to draw a set of meetings for one or two years, he said. Other attractions are needed to retain those meetings in subsequent years, he continued.
“It’s really important to have a lot of things outside the resort that people can do,” Ferguson said. “It’s really important that all of us continue to work together and think about those other things in the area that expand the opportunities.”
The event center expansion ties in to efforts to market South Central Indiana as a tourism draw, according to Radius Indiana President and CEO Becky Skillman. Radius focuses on economic development in Crawford, Daviess, Dubois, Greene, Lawrence, Martin, Orange and Washington counties.
“We’re going to market and promote this region as the tourism destination of choice,” said Skillman, who is also Indiana’s former lieutenant governor. “We are the garden spot of the state of Indiana. We have the best parks and forest land, wetlands. We have limestone country. We have Patoka Lake.”
Skillman also took some time to point out the influence Cook Group’s founding family has had in rehabbing and developing the area.
“I continue to see Bill Cook’s handprint on projects everywhere I go,” Skillman said. “We are so, so fortunate that we have the family with us and continue to have them involved in our region and in the state.”
