Ground broken: Gov. Holcomb calls Potato Creek inn site a 'perfect parcel of land.'

NORTH LIBERTY — Against a backdrop of fall colors that neared their peak, dozens of state and local officials gathered Thursday to break ground for a $100 million lodge at Potato Creek State Park that has been a dream for more than two decades and, until last year, was never a certain one.

The four-story inn, with 120 guest rooms and 250 parking spaces, will mark a change to the shoreline of the park’s Worster Lake, where it will take in a sweeping view of the water.

“I’ll bet if you spend five minutes looking at that scene behind me, your blood pressure will go down,” Gov. Eric Holcomb said at the tree-lined water’s edge where it’ll appear, just minutes after turning his ceremonial shovel. “It’s just a perfect parcel of land. … We need places like this, not just pictures of places like this, that are drivable.”

It was his first visit to Potato Creek.

Aug. 8, 2023: This time, parks chief says, Potato Creek inn will really happen

This will be the eighth state park lodge in Indiana, but it will be the first one built in the state since 1939. Officials say the actual construction is expected to start next spring and finish in 2026 or 2027.

Officials on Thursday finally released drawings that give the public its first glimpse at the future inn, which officials have withheld until now, saying that they hadn’t yet been fully approved.

The inn’s façade will include a stone veneer along with a brownish siding made of fiber cement, simulating wood logs but without the need to paint and seal over the long term, said Jeff Justice, project manager and president of the Evansville-based architecture firm Hafer Design. The metal roof will be green.

The preliminary plans call for 120 guest rooms, a full-service dining room for 150 and patio/terrace, an event and conference center with room for 350 guests, gift shop, café, activity rooms and a mini-nature room for programs and exhibits. 

A key feature of the inn will be its indoor aquatic center with a pool, water slide and spray pad in a 9,000-square-foot room. The idea is similar to the one added to the Abe Martin Lodge at Brown County State Park in Nashville, Ind.

Water parks, Indiana State Parks Director Terry Coleman has told The Tribune, help to draw families to the inn through the winter.

Outside, there would be a playground, a lake observation deck and boardwalk, 12 boat slips on the water and parking for 250 vehicles.

The park’s paved bike trail will intersect with the lodge, where a half-mile paved trail loop will be added around the inn.

Attracting more people to the park

Justice said bids are due in November for subcontractors and materials, while the general contractor will be the Indianapolis-based construction firm Skillman.

And although the overall design is done, Dan Bortner, director of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, said there may still be some minor tweaks before work actually begins.

“We have mixed emotions,” Carol Howard of LaPorte, who’s been bringing her family to stay in a park cabin here each fall for 31 years, said after snapping a photo of the governor on a lake pier. “We’re pretty excited about the inn. But is it going to take away from the ambiance? There’s going to be more people.”

She cherishes “the quiet” at the park and “coves where you can sit for hours.”

But she also envisions staying at the inn when she’s too old for the cabin.

Bortner said the inn shouldn’t have trouble finding people to stay. Occupancy rates at Indiana State Park lodges run higher than in the private sector and higher than at park inns in other states, he said, adding, “It’s not a coincidence that it’s close to Notre Dame.”

The lodge will be operated through the Indiana Inns Authority, established by the state legislature as a quasi-governmental entity that is part of the DNR’s Division of State Parks.

The inn will perch into the hillside overlooking Worster Lake at the same spot that has been suggested over the past two decades, at the Whispering Winds Picnic Area, which is on the lake’s southwest shore.

The site had been chosen because much of its natural habitat had already been disturbed. Now a mostly grassy area, it was disturbed when the lake was filled more than 40 years ago as part of the park’s creation on former farmland.

Besides, the site is just three-quarters of a mile into the park from the gatehouse.

A new view on and from the lake

For those at the inn, it would afford sweeping views of the lake. The inn, though, would break open a prominent view of the building from the water.

“The idea is to have the building connect with the lake,” Justice said.

For now, boaters see a natural, mostly undeveloped shoreline around the 327-acre Worster Lake, apart from the beach and its beach house, a few piers, a historic barn by a boat ramp and vehicle and RV traffic along the northwest shore, just above grasses and flowers lining the water.

Some trees and vegetation along the shoreline will be removed to break open that view. But landscape architect Pete Andriot of Indianapolis said that select native trees will be kept near the shore, while several invasive species will be removed. Unlike the lodge at Pokagon State Park in Angola, which also sits on a large lake, he said native grasses will be planted near the shore while the walkable turf grasses will be up closer to the inn.

“We don’t trim (vegetation) unless there’s a reason to do it,” Bortner said. “At the end of the day, conservation is the name of the game.”

What it means for North Liberty

The state’s hopes for a Potato Creek lodge had languished for more than 20 years through failed attempts at funding until legislators finally secured dollars in the state budget.

The project will cost $100 million, a sum that state legislators approved this year, up from $60 million last year. Legislators boosted the amount, local state Rep. Jake Teshka has said, because of “cost overruns due to the volatility of the supply chain.”

July 19, 2023: Residents give mixed reviews for trail options from Potato Creek to North Liberty

They’d initially secured the money in the state budget in 2021, bolstered by the state’s influx of COVID-19 relief money.

Meanwhile, the town of North Liberty hopes to begin construction next year on a water tower and the extension of water and wastewater services to the park, town Clerk-Treasurer Vicki Kitchen said. Without those utilities, the inn wouldn’t be possible.

Kitchen said the town has been collecting bids for the work through six separate contracts, hoping to have them approved and signed by the end of December. The town would pay for the work with state funding.

Town officials are likewise hoping to see a paved trail of three to four miles built between North Liberty and Potato Creek, a route that could potentially draw park visitors to town, which for now offers two miles of its own paved trails, a bakery, a Subway store and a bowling alley for places to eat. A local ice cream shop burned early this year.

The Michiana Area Council of Governments has been developing the trail plans but got mixed feedback on its two leading options at an open house July 11 in North Liberty.

For the Pokagon Band of the Potawatomi, Chairwoman Rebecca Richards said it is good to see tourism grow here.

She and Pokagon Vice Chair Gary Morseau spoke at the ceremony and released tobacco into the lake site.

“This is where our people hunted, fished and gathered the little potatoes,” Richards said.

The state offers more information about the lodge at Potato Creek at on.IN.gov/potato-creek-lodge.

Find columnist Joseph Dits on Facebook at SBTOutdoorAdventures or 574-235-6158 or jdits@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Ground broken for Potato Creek lodge in North Liberty