BOZEMAN — If you've driven out to Four Corners in the last couple of months, then you probably have seen a building being constructed for the last several weeks; it's one of the first hotels in the area, and it could be a sign of changes to come, especially along the Highway 191 corridor.
LaRell Baldwin is the general manager of Home2 Suites by Hilton and has been working in the hospitality industry for more than two decades. She's now putting the finishing touches on the first hotel set to open in Four Corners.
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“So, we're right smack in the middle,” says Baldwin. “It's an untapped market. And it's really amazing that we're the first hotel in the area. I think that's going to be huge for us.”
The Home Suites Brand is geared to people who plan on vacationing longer.
“Towards people that are staying five days or more,” says Baldwin.
Something that Bozeman Chamber of Commerce CEO Daryl Schliem says is a shift in the Gallatin Valley’s hotel market.
“So I think that's a diversification that you're seeing in our market right now. You're seeing not your just, standard hotels and the brands that are coming in, but also the new shoot-offs of what those have to happen,” says Schliem.
Schliem says the 191 corridor could see more hotels in the next decade as a central location to destinations throughout Gallatin County.
“Four Corners itself is maturing,” says Schliem. “I think the traffic counts and everything else—so finally people took a look at is, it now validates that people coming from Big Sky, maybe closer to the airport, don't want to stay in Belgrade, don't want to stay in Bozeman."
Virga Capital was the developer behind Four Corners’ first hotel, and Schliem says developers could be eyeing 191 in the second half of the decade.
Shliem believes that hotel inventory could double in the next decade.
“Gallatin County and Belgrade and Four Corners—even up through Big Sky, I think you can see investment in hotels and growth there,” says Schliem.
The Home2 Suites in Four Corners is expected to open in March.
