Digby Pines Resort and Spa (Tourism NS photo)
Like many businesses, the Digby Pines Golf Resort and Spa is re-opening a bit at a time.
New owners were announced late last year and one of them, Glenn Squires of Pacrim Hospitality Services, says they opened the golf course within days of being allowed.
“Through the winter, we had a fairly significant issue in the kitchen which wasn’t open last summer, so we spent about two million dollars getting that in shape and, our current plan is that Friday, June 19th, we will open the cottages and we’ll have the Nineteenth Hole will be available for food and beverage.”
Squires, who partnered with property developer Basim Halef, teamed up with the Bear River First Nation band council to purchase the Pines, says they will probably open the main building early next month and Digby Hall, the conference facility, will be used as the restaurant because of it’s social distancing effectiveness.
They are already in the planning stages to have every building on the property winterized.
“That will entail insulating the building, changing all of the windows, changing the HVAC system, putting a new elevator in, so we think that’ll take the bulk of the work this winter. The plan is, right now, when we open next April or May, the hotel will be open permanently and we’ll be developed into a four season resort.”
The group is also in talks to affiliate with a major well known hotel brands.
Squires says Pacrim also has a development and management deal with the Acadia First Nation for the Tru By Hilton being built in Yarmouth and that all the properties they are involved with will market each other, work with local organizations to bring in events, and will develop their own travel platform.
“Think about Booking dot com or something like that but devoted to Atlantic Canada. We want to put it in Digby because we want to use The Pines as our showcase property when we’re bringing in people from outside the region and internationally. That’s going to be focused on bringing in business to Atlantic Canada, focused on packaging so that people not just can book a hotel but if they want to book whale watching or those sorts of thing.”
They are already looking for facilities in the area and having 50-75 employees to start and then build their own facilities in a year or two.
He feels this is a good time to make these moves.
