Sandpoint P&Z opens the way for new hotel project at City Beach

By Zach Hagadone

Rendering showing the proposed resort-hotel project from Averill Hospitality, located at the current Best Western Edgewater site.
Photo courtesy OZ Architecture.

Reader Staff

The biggest news to break over Sandpoint in recent months has been the announcement that Whitefish, Mont.-based Averill Hospitality is poised to begin redevelopment at the Best Western Edgewater Resort site adjacent to City Beach.

Long considered among the most desirable pieces of real estate in the county, the Edgewater has also long been slated for demolition and replacement with a new hotel under a different brand.

Averill purchased the property in the spring of 2022, though word had circulated through the community going back at least to 2017 that it would be redeveloped. After several rumor-filled years and through a high-profile land swap with the city of Sandpoint — which traded the grassy strip in front of the hotel for the RV park to the south — Sandpoint City Hall finally had the opportunity to look at a concrete plan for the approximately three-acre site, voting unanimously June 18 to approve a conditional use permit and variance for Averill’s proposed 296,260-square-foot hotel and resort.

Rendering showing the proposed resort-hotel project from Averill Hospitality, located at the current Best Western Edgewater site.
Photo courtesy OZ Architecture.

The meeting lasted about four and a half hours with public testimony trending heavily in support.

Brian Averill, speaking on behalf of his family’s company, told commissioners that the hotel intends to employ about 400 staff members. The facility is planned to include 181 guest rooms, a 14,262-square-foot event space, two restaurants — one 4,600-square-foot eatery inside the resort and another 1,391-square-foot standalone restaurant on the southeast corner of the property — as well as 240 parking spaces and guest amenities such as a gym, pool, recreational equipment rentals and curated retail spaces.

Averill also told city officials that the hotel would bring in $500,000-$600,000 per year in hotel property taxes and  $2.5 million in additional annual “tourist tax” local option revenue. The Reader reached out to City Hall to inquire about those estimates, but city offices were closed June 19 in honor of the Juneteenth holiday.

Meanwhile, Mayor Jeremy Grimm told the Reader in an email that, “This scale of project is a once-in-a-generation investment in the community” and “an order-of-magnitude change in our ability to host state and regional gatherings.” 

Rendering showing the proposed resort-hotel project from Averill Hospitality, located at the current Best Western Edgewater site.
Photo courtesy OZ Architecture.

“Although change can be difficult, this is one element of change that will dramatically benefit Sandpoint in a variety of ways,” he added. “Being home to the only lakefront hotel within an incorporated city in all of Bonner County will position Sandpoint and our adjacent downtown in an advantageous position for the future. I am grateful to the Averill family for their commitment to making this project the best it can be and for their thoughtful and sensitive approach to the design.”

The project is estimated to cost upward of $70 million.

Developers of the site asked for a variance so that their proposed design could be set back from the property line — intended to avoid the impression of building mass and obstruction of views at City Beach Park, and provide a covered pickup and dropoff location on Bridge Street. 

Averill said that the company is intent on making its resort hotel part of the community, helping foster events at the beach, and “looks forward to participating in the master plan for City Beach Park.”

“It doesn’t make any sense to me at all to prolong this process any longer,” Commissioner Amelia Boyd said, later adding, “Moving forward is the right thing to do.”

Editor’s note: This story and headline has been corrected to reflect that decisions regarding conditional use permits and variances are made at the planning and zoning level, and are not required to go before the city council — unless appealed.