HARRIS, Mich. (WZMQ) – The Island Resort & Casino is nearly finished with a $19 million expansion project.
The newly expanded Island Convention Center is welcoming its first guests this week as part of the Epson Tour.
“It’s about 95% done now,” said Island General Manager Tony Mancilla. “We’re just waiting for a few little technical things, but it’s fully functional. It’s ready to go.”
The convention center is a nearly 17,000-square-foot ballroom. Mancilla says the larger space meets a big demand and provides new opportunities for The Island.
“We’ve had a lot of our events we couldn’t host because it wasn’t big enough,” he explained. “A lot of our existing conventions want to expand statewide rather than just the U.P., so we’ll be holding a lot of bigger conventions.”
The convention center used to house an indoor pro shop. That indoor space has been replaced with bathrooms for convention guests. Just outside the convention center, a new pro shop now overlooks the Sweetgrass golf course.
“It’s really designed with the golfer in mind,” Mancilla said. “We have showers in there, we have a dryer for wet days, we have a full bar in there. It’s a view of the 19th and 18th hole. It really is the standard of Sweetgrass. It’s a beautiful course and it needed a new pro shop.”
Another golf development still in the works is the new Cedar course near Sage Run.
“We’re adding nine more holes,” said Macilla. “It’s right now being shaped; irrigation’s going in. We should be planting seed by sometime in late July.”
Between the golf updates and the expanded convention space, Mancilla says The Island Resort & Casino is able to offer a more complete experience for guests. Once the weather cools down, he expects convention bookings to begin ramping up.
“In the summer with golf, we sell out the hotel from Memorial Day through the end of September every day,” he said. “In the wintertime, it’s slower in the U.P. A lot of folks to their conventions in the middle of the winter, and this is kind of an attraction for that. We have the hotel that can host major events. We think it’s the premiere convention center in the U.P. now.”
For information on holding an event at The Island Convention Center, click here.
