The grand opening of the Dakota Dunes Golf Links clubhouse teed off Thursday morning with an official ribbon cutting.
“It all began four or five years ago. The planning stage was longer than usual on a project this size because they didn’t know what they wanted. We went through a lot of (drawing) schemes to decide what we wanted,” said Ted Rusick, clubhouse architect.
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The clubhouse was originally planned to be around 20,000 square feet but stakeholders scaled back deciding 7,000 square feet would be enough to house locker and meeting rooms, a pro-shop, restaurant and patios.
“We’ve got a space here to handle all the medium sized tournaments, some of our league nights and other special events,” said general manager McLaren Taylor.
The local architect says the $3.5 million building highlights the river valley and unique dune formations.
“In terms of design we wanted to build it into the hill because of the dunes. So it wasn’t a pimple in the golf course, but rather blending into the overall golf course,” Rusick said.
SEE BELOW: Dakota Dunes golf clubhouse photo gallery
Chief Darcy Bear of the Whitecap Dakota First Nation welcomes the development, which is on par with the quality of the course ranked No. 15 in Canada and No. 1 in Saskatchewan.
“This project wouldn’t be a reality right from day one if it wasn’t for our partners … we put together a world class golf course in our province and we’re certainly all really proud of it,” Chief Bear said.
Development for the area isn’t stopping here, a business park and hotel are still in the works.
“The hotel will be one-hundred-sixty rooms, about a thirty million dollar project and one-hundred-forty jobs will come with it,” Chief Bear said.
The hotel is expected to be finished in two-and-a-half years.
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