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by Paul Craig
CANYONVILLE — The Seven Feathers Hotel & Casino Resort is planning to accommodate a lot more overnight guests.
More than twice as many, actually.
The hotel, owned by the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians, is planning to expand from 140 rooms to 290.
“The Seven Feathers Hotel & Casino Resort is going to … begin its second phase of development,” said Susan Ferris, spokeswoman for the tribe.
Every addition to the casino, from the sports bar STIX in 2003 to the second-floor bingo hall this last March, has been considered “phase one” development, Ferris said.
Phase two includes the hotel expansion, as well as another restaurant and a spa.
“It’s going to become a more comprehensive facility,” Ferris said.
The hope is for the additions to begin by the end of the year, though nothing is set, Ferris said. Details on the restaurant and spa are not finalized either.
One reason for the hotel expansion is so the resort can attract larger conferences and events to its convention center. Ferris said Seven Feathers’ convention center could “easily” support a conference that would fill nearly 300 hotel rooms.
“You can’t begin to answer the call to a lot of associations if you only have 140 rooms,” she said.
The additional rooms will be built like a wing. Ferris said it will be somewhere behind the hotel’s pool and intersect the current hotel at a right angle.
Jean Kurtz, director of Roseburg’s Visitors & Convention Bureau, said the casino is certainly a “big draw” for the area. The visitors center doesn’t receive as many questions about it as, say, Crater Lake, but Kurtz said it is an attraction to travelers.
She doesn’t expect the resort’s growth to have any negative affect on hotel business in Roseburg, either.
“They need it for as successful as they’ve been,” she said of Seven Feathers. “They need the rooms.”
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