Ramada ownership changing
With two local businesswomen ready to assume ownership of the Ramada Inn in Ligonier, its current owners are moving forward with plans to build a brand new hotel attraction in neighboring Somerset County.
Annie Urban, executive director of the Laurel Highlands Visitors Bureau, announced plans this week to purchase and operate the Ligonier site in partnership with Ann Nemanic, director of marketing at Mountain View Inn in Unity Township.
The Ramada has been owned by the Alms family of Greensburg since 1992. Roger and Rose Alms, who also own the Days Inn in Donegal, turned the Ramada over to their daughters in 2001.
Sisters Andrea Cuda, Deborah Fox, Lisa Spitzer and Pamela Wolff, along with their parents, are now doing business as Highlands Development Group, which proposes construction of a $12 million hotel and conference center and a 28,000-square-foot indoor water park in Somerset next year.
But Wolff said the family is glad to see the Ligonier hotel will be left in good hands.
"So often, when a hotel sells, it doesn't go to business people from the community," she said. "So we're very happy that it will be going to people who care about the community. Our whole family has a very good feeling about it."
Plans for the Somerset project are "still very preliminary, but we've been working on it for about a year," Wolff said, estimating a spring groundbreaking. "And we hope to open in the winter of 2006-2007."
The family development group now owns seven acres near the Pennsylvania Turnpike interchange in Somerset, Wolff said.
Though "nothing has been signed, as yet," the hotel and conference center will be built under an existing franchise, she said.
Plans for the water park there include a "lazy river" that will feature waves, along with tube and body slides, a giant bowl slide, an activity pool and party room and snack bar, Wolff added.
The estimated price tag for the project will be about $12 million.
"We saw it as a great opportunity, and we're looking to try something new," added Cuda. "We're trying to bring in a brand new attraction, and we're very excited about it."
The sale of the Ramada Inn is also pending, but Urban said she hopes to close the deal in mid-October.
The women have no immediate changes in mind, she said.
"It has been run very well over the past several years, and we're hoping to keep it pretty much the way it is and maybe grow the business a little," said Urban, who plans to step down from her current post at the end of October.
A Ligonier High School graduate with 15 years of experience in the hotel industry, Urban said she is looking forward to managing a hotel in her hometown.
She worked for 10 years at the Sheraton Inn in Hempfield Township and also as general manager of the Holiday Inn Express there for two years. Urban was also regional director for Crown American Hotels before taking her current post at the visitors bureau in 1999.
Nemanic has been with Mountain View Inn for 14 years, Urban said. "At one point, we were competitors, but we were always friendly competitors. Now, we're going to be partners, and we both have a love for this whole area."
"I think it's great that these two experienced ladies are going to be running the hotel here in historic Ligonier," said Ligonier Valley Chamber of Commerce President Rachel Roehrig.
"They're both very 'pro-promotion,' and with their backgrounds, it should do very well," Roehrig said. "I'm sure they'll work very hard to bring people into the region."
