By Zach Kayser / Bemidji Pioneer
After a year of construction, the Country Inn and Suites by Carlson opened Friday with the hubbub of the Blue Ox Marathon happening only feet away at the Sanford Center.
The Country Inn and Suites features 121 rooms and is attached to the Sanford Center through an adjoining Cowboy Jacks restaurant, which has yet to open. “We’re thrilled,” Saundra McLean, the hotel’s general manager, said Tuesday. “It’s great to have a facility attached to the Sanford Center.”
McLean said a more formal grand opening is planned for mid-November with a ribbon-cutting and appearance by Carlson CEO Trudy Rautio, a Bemidji State University alumna.
McLean herself has strong Bemidji roots, having attended high school and college here before moving away to follow her husband’s career. She has been in the hotel industry for 34 years, she said, including when she helped oversee the opening of the Ramada in Fargo.
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The hotel held a groundbreaking in September 2013.
