NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Even with the hotel capacity challenges Hutchinson continues to face, the NJCAA Tournament isn't going anywhere.
"Dr. Parker was here from NJCAA for the first couple of days," said LeAnn Cox with Visit Hutch. "We did talk with him and he has concerns about the community adequately supporting this championship, just because of the hotel situation. The City of Hutchinson heard that message and conveyed back to Dr. Parker, we are going to solve this problem. I felt much better after having that conversation."
The city has said it is not going to go forward with the Atrium Hotel purchase, so what are the other location options?
"We had a consultant come in back in 2018," Cox said. "They identified, location wise, in the K-61 corridor. That could be anywhere from 11th Street north up to, I guess you could go as far as between 17th and 30th, close to K-61, not too far off of that, either side. Anywhere between 11th to at least 17th to 23rd, maybe."
A fairgrounds hotel, though it is still an idea, wouldn't be enough rooms or have the convention center space that Hutchinson needs to even out hotel demand outside of the tournament and the fair.
"We have talked to the market," Cox said. "They have told us that they want to come to Hutchinson. We haven't quite abandoned that. We have maybe taken a slight detour just out of the bare necessity. Inventory of hotel rooms, we are desperate for. Coming off of last week with nine teams that were here for the championship, we had to put nine teams out of town. They had to stay and travel back and forth. That's never a good situation for the teams, for the student athletes that have earned their way to come to the championship, nor for the community of Hutchinson, because all those dollars are being spent now, out of town in Wichita and McPherson, when they go out to eat, when they have some downtime and maybe want to go to attractions. All that money we're losing. We are desperate to get hotel rooms back here in Hutchinson."
Even if someone called today and offered a deal on a new hotel and the land was easy to acquire and there were no other roadblocks, it would still most likely be two years before that new property would be open at tournament time. However, the hope is that the process can begin at some non-Atrium location later this year.