Elgin to receive $10,000 grant
Staff writer
The Elgin Hotel will receive a $10,000 grant from the Kansas Department of Commerce to build an app and website that will serve as a tourism guide to Marion County.
The tourism marketing grant, which is given out each September, pays about 40% of what’s required to build and publicize the guide, according to hotel proprietor Tammy Ensey. The hotel will pay the rest.
The guide will feature sections for dining, events, and historic buildings across the county. In fact, Ensey plans for the guide to stretch farther than the county’s borders.
“We have a lot of assets just outside of the county that we can promote,” she said.
The project will take roughly 18 months, although the website and app should be ready for use by the end of the year, she said.
“I wanted to do it eight years ago,” Ensey said of the project. “But we had a few other things to do [first].” She and her husband Jeremy purchased the Elgin in 2016.
The hotel is no stranger to grants, having received $1.5 million during the coronavirus pandemic.
During this time, hotel business was minimal, and its fine dining restaurant, Parlour 1886, was shut down.
Ensey said that the money was used to continue to pay staff working on renovation projects inside the hotel, pay off debt at Parlour 1886, and finish purchasing the building.