Last year Perry Economic Development, the City of Perry and others announced a partnership to bring the Hotel Pattee under local ownership and management and another step forward has been taken. 

Perry Hospitality, Incorporated (PHI) was created earlier this year in April as the new management team for the Hotel Pattee and takes over management today. The Board includes multiple members including Tom Burkgren, Alan Peitz as well as Jenny Eklund. 

Burkgren is also the chief executive officer for the group and says the idea to have local management came up during the process of wanting the hotel to be locally owned. Burkgren says having local members helping to manage the hotel is important. 

“We bring the commitment from being residents of Perry for a long time along with experience and knowledge of how to make businesses run and run efficiently. So, we feel like it’s a good mix.”

Burkgren tells Raccoon Valley Radio having local management and local ownership of the hotel will be important to its longevity. Burkgren says the hopes are for the hotel to continue to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic and move forward.

“Coming out of the COVID experience, certainly we are rebuilding our base of business on both (the) restaurant and the lodging and then the event center with La Poste and so it’s a rebuilding time. A lot of our marketing is by word of mouth and part of that build up is also assembling the right team and we are well on our way, we have got a tremendous resource in our team members.”

Perry Economic Development will look to transfer ownership of the Hotel Pattee to the City of Perry sometime at the end of this year or early next year.