Renovation work nearly finished at Nebraska City hotel

NEBRASKA CITY, Neb. (AP) - Everything but the ceiling.

That’s the scope of the renovation project at Nebraska City’s Lied Lodge and Conference Center, which rests on the 260-acre Arbor Day Farm. The hotel and conference center is putting the finishing touches on a nearly $9 million face-lift of the guest rooms, lobby, technology, dining room and pool, the Omaha World-Herald (https://bit.ly/1FzUH01 ) reported.

The 137-room hotel has made incremental changes since it opened in September 1993 - new mattresses here, new pool furniture there, General Manager Denise DuVall said. An addition of guest rooms was completed in 1998.

“This is the first major renovation, when we’re doing it all at once,” DuVall said.

Interior renovations began in January. Workers were still installing windows this month, and some furniture shipments are still to come, but all should be completed by July. The renovation has included new fiber Internet service, three times faster than its predecessor; the replacement of all 268 windows; new furniture, paint and carpet in guest rooms and the dining room; new lighting throughout; a fresh coat of paint on the pool; and new furniture and carpet in conference rooms. Several guest rooms also were joined and converted into suites.

The original cedar ceilings and beams remain with a new coat of varnish, a nod to the lodge’s roots in tree planting.

“It’s who we are. Trees are kind of our thing,” Marketing Director Amy Stouffer said.

Some work, including a new roof and new exterior paint, began last fall.

The environment also was a priority throughout the project. All rooms are equipped with recycling bins, and low-flow toilets were installed. The entire lodge is lit with LED bulbs. Old carpet was recycled, and all of the old furniture was donated to Keep Nebraska Beautiful, which distributed it to various nonprofits, DuVall said.

“It was just nice not to have to put it in a landfill,” she said.

In guest rooms that were converted to suites, timbers also were repurposed. One was cut in half and is now used as a support for a breakfast bar in the suites.

Staff members worked on the renovation where it made sense, DuVall said.

“We used a lot of our own staff members during what would normally be a slow time of year,” she said.

Quotes about nature, which border many of the walls, also have been replaced after a fresh coat of paint. “That was one of our biggest questions from our guests, ’You are going to put the quotes back, aren’t you?’ ” DuVall said.

The lodge is owned and operated by the Arbor Day Foundation. It was built through funds from a congressional appropriation via the U.S. Forest Service, the Lied Foundation and thousands of private donations. When it opened, the center was dedicated to Arbor Day Foundation founder John Rosenow.

“He wanted a place where people could get together, learn about nature and share their passions for nature,” Stouffer said.

The vision was that it would be a place where organizations and groups dedicated to nature could meet.

Now, about 250,000 people come through its doors annually. The lodge hosts about 50 weddings per year, plus various conferences, family reunions and gatherings. Arbor Day Farm features hiking trails, an orchard and a vineyard.

The hotel remained open throughout the renovation, requiring some notice to guests on what to expect.

“We’re hearing from guests that they love the changes we made, that they can’t wait to come back and see it finished, so that’s really encouraging,” Stouffer said.

___

Information from: Omaha World-Herald, https://www.omaha.com