Story

The Canad Inns is a 200,000 square foot, 192-room hotel located adjacent to the Alerus Center, Grand Forks’ indoor arena/convention center.  As the Canadian hotel chain’s first facility in the United States, portraying the company’s avant-garde up-and-coming image was a primary of the design challenge.  The program for the hotel consists of guest rooms, administration areas, a water park, three restaurants, and other business tenant fit-up spaces.  The layout extends the main concourse of the existing events center past the hotel lobby and the hotel’s various services.  The skylight along this “main street” also visually accentuates the hotel’s signature tower design to its visitors, while projecting natural daylight for the circulation route and the adjacent business / retail spaces.  The Canad Inns project allowed the design team to explore the use of metal panel systems, precast concrete and galvanized steel in a series of layers that both complimented the owner’s high-tech, industrial-yet modern tastes, while also maintaining a cost effective design that respected the owner’s budget.