SARANAC LAKE — The Hotel Saranac will be the Jamaican bobsled team’s home away from home for the rest of this season after all.
Though Franklin County passed on putting $135,000 in occupancy tax revenue toward a partnership with the team, which was being brokered by the North Country Sports Council, the council is putting up its own funds to make the downtown Saranac Lake hotel a “training haven” for the Jamaican athletes while they practice sliding at Mount Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid through the end of March.
‘MOVE AHEAD WITHOUT THEM’
The Jamaican flag is flying on the hotel terrace and Hotel Saranac Sales Director Myra Rondeau said there are already athletes staying at the hotel, with more coming in the coming weeks.
“The North Country Sports Council really pushed this through and said ‘If the county’s not going support us, we’re just kind of going to move ahead without them,’” Rondeau said.
Executive Director Matthew Dougherty said the hotel is “stepping up” as a major partner.
“The North Country Sports Council is funding the difference and the hotel is putting in what they already put in, plus a lot of effort and manpower,” Dougherty said. “They’re fully behind it.”
TOO BIG OF AN OPPORTUNITY
He said the council leaders still believe in making the Jamaican bobsled team a part of Saranac Lake and are making it happen with their own money.
“(It was) too big of an opportunity to miss out on,” NCSC Chair and Saranac Lake native Neil Fortier said.
This is taking a personal investment from him. Fortier said he’s fully funding the council. But he added that bringing the Jamaician team here is the exact sort of thing the council was started for.
“Especially when it’s something you really believe in and you know it has upsides and it’s going to be a great value for the area, we’re just committed to making it work,” Dougherty said, adding that that is something he’s learned from being a collegiate coach for 25 years. “Nothing ever goes exactly as planned, so just be ready and pivot and come up with a good plan and make it work.”
DEBUT IN PARADE
The team will make their North Country public debut in the Saranac Lake Winter Carnival Gala Parade on Saturday, where Dougherty said people will get to experience the team’s “infectious energy” decked out in their country’s colors of green, yellow and black.
“It’ll look a lot like Jamaica,” Dougherty said.
After the parade, Rondeau said the team will bring a sled up to the hotel’s terrace to meet people and sign autographs.
“They are the nicest athletes,” she said. “They’re so kind and they’ve been taking pictures with people around town and meeting everybody that they can.”
In addition to Saranac Lake being their training headquarters, Dougherty said sliders will be “immersing themselves in the vibrant local community and becoming an integral addition to its culture.”
Fortier and Dougherty said they hope to make this a long-term arrangement for future years. If it works well this year, he said they’ll actively go after partners in the future — this could be trying with Franklin County again, Essex County, New York state or private organizations.
Fortier said they are looking to work with the state through its new cultural diversity marketing initiatives, as well as the Jamaica Tourist Board and a number of other partners. He hopes people see the results from this year and he hopes local governments capitalize on the promotion opportunity.
Dougherty said NCSC will continue to work on tourism initiatives for both the North Country and Jamaica, with cross-promotion of the regions.
“It would be impossible to tell the story of the Jamaica Bobsled team without including its relationship with the North Country where all its pilots first learned to drive a bobsled,” Stokes said in a statement.
He said its current development coach, Pat Brown, comes from the region and its current performance coach, Todd Hays, lives in the area.
“The team has willingly participated in community events over the years as a way of returning and showing appreciation for the warmth and caring with which its athletes have been received,” Stokes said.
The state Olympic Regional Development Authority, which operates the sliding track at the Olympic Sports Complex at Mount Van Hoevenberg in Essex County, has been letting the team have free sledding time during their training.
The stay
The athletes are staying at the extended stay suites in the Compass Point building on Church Street, next to the main hotel. Dougherty said athletes will be using between one and four suites at once, depending on what is happening at that point in the season. In all, there are 102 rooms and suites at the hotel.
Rondeau said the hotel is renting these suites out to NCSC for $120 a night. In the slow season, these rooms typically go for $350 a night, she said, and up to $600 in the busy season.
“We did take a pretty big hit on our room rate,” she said. “Especially since they’re staying over Winter Carnival.”
She said the hotel really wanted to be the Jamaicans’ home away from home badly and was happy to make the sacrifice. The hotel staff wanted to make them comfortable, support the NCSC’s mission and create goodwill in the community.
“We really believe wholeheartedly in the marketing opportunity,” David Roedel, the business development officer for Roedel Companies — which owns and operates the Hotel Saranac — said on Thursday. “We’re willing to give up dollars as sort of a first step to create opportunities in the future.”
This past October, Nelson “Chris” Stokes, the president of the Jamaica Bobsleigh Federation and the brakeman for the team’s legendary 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics debut, told the Enterprise that he wants to make Lake Placid the “home” of Jamaican bobsled, saying it’s always been their second track. The 1988 Olympic debut of the Jamaican bobsled team inspired the 1993 Disney movie “Cool Runnings.”
The team is already in and out of the area for training as Lake Placid has one of only three Olympic-level bobsled tracks in North America.
Roedel said he is “proud” to work with the Jamaican bobsled team.
“We feel this is exactly the type of business the village and the county needs to attract to generate additional tourism dollars and priceless marketing opportunities,” Roedel said in a statement. “We promise to keep the team well rested, fed and cared for as they pursue their athletic dreams.”
Now, he said, their job is “to do a “really great job to convince people from the area who make those decisions to say ‘We need to do more of this, not less.’”
The attempted county partnership
The NCSC had initially proposed a partnership between the team and Franklin County, in which the county would have spent $135,000 in occupancy tax revenue to pay for the athlete’s rooms for a minimum of 900 nights at a discount.
Last month, the county’s Tourism Advisory Committee declined to back this proposal, leading the legislature to not put it up for a vote.
“We listen to what they want to do,” Legislature Chair Ed Lockwood said of the TAC.
But county officials were not all clear on the TAC’s vote count or reasons for its decision.
TAC chair Chris LaBarge declined to divulge the committee’s reasons for its vote, declined to share how each member voted and declined to share whether the vote was unanimous or split.
Fortier was frustrated by the TAC’s decision.
He said he knew that the vote was a split vote but didn’t know the exact breakdown of how each member of the nine-member board voted, other than it would have been a tie if Hotel Saranac General Manager and TAC member Jacob Kipping hadn’t abstained from the vote, which would have made LaBarge vote as a tie-breaker.
There would have been cross-pollination between their branding, with the Jamaican bobsled team putting Franklin County logos on their sleds and uniforms, and the county being able to use the team’s logo in its marketing, as well as community appearances, autograph sessions and a potential athlete parade in Saranac Lake.
The Jamaican bobsled team is no stranger to recovering from setbacks. When the team made its Olympic debut in the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, with Stokes as a last-minute brakeman, their sled crashed on their last run at 80 miles per hour. But the team got up, righted their sled and walked it to the finish line to the cheers of the world stage.
“Although we’re disappointed that the Franklin County Tourism Advisory Committee chose not to support this partnership with occupancy tax funding, we’re appreciative of the Hotel Saranac, the village of Saranac Lake, the town of Harrietstown and many others who have shown support,” Fortier said in a statement. “As our friends to the east know, it’s rare to have opportunities to partner and associate with an Olympic organization having just competed with Utah to host U.S. Biathlon. Especially with one that is so iconic and immortalized by the Disney film.”
Roedel was said he was surprised and disappointed with the county’s decision. He said the money was bed tax dollars meant to bring in people to hotels like his, and he thought this was a good opportunity. He said he’s not giving up hope on next season.
Franklin County Legislator Lindy Ellis, who represents the Saranac Lake region in the county Legislature, was disappointed that the partnership didn’t come up for a vote. Both the Saranac Lake Village Board and Harrietstown Town Council in her region voiced support for the plan.
On Thursday se said she’s glad the NCSC is moving forward and said the plan is a good way to draw in athletes and showcase the community. She said Franklin County was open to the idea, but just wanted more funding sources. If they see an established partnership with additional partners and a good plan next year, she said she hopes they’ll take a vote on it.