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Advocates Oppose Indiana Dunes Hotel

A plan to build a hotel and convention center on the shoreline inside Indiana Dunes State Park, in northwest Indiana, is pitting the state against a variety of environmental organizations.

The proposed hotel is part of a plan to bring lodging to those Indiana state parks where there are few nearby overnight facilities. The conceptual plan for the Dunes is for a 100-room hotel and conference center, with a swimming pool and 200-car parking lot. It will be situated on the footprint of an old, small hotel built in the 1930s and will be just southwest, and in view of, the dune known as Mount Tom and an existing pavilion. Indiana Dunes State Park has 2,182 acres, 1,530 of which have heightened protection as a nature preserve.

Supporting the development are Governor Mitch Daniels, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, some area innkeepers, the Northwest Indiana Forum, and the Lake County Tourism Board. Lined up against the proposal are a number of environmental groups, including the 53-year-old Save the Dunes Council. The Porter County Convention, Recreation and Visitor Commission supports the concept of a hotel inside the park, but not on the shoreline. Estimates suggest the proposed hotel will be within a few hundred feet of the water's edge.

Currently, the park has only campsites. The position of the state is that the hotel complex will bring in visitors year round, as well as an innkeeper’s tax for use of public land.

More significantly, the state maintains that the site is already disturbed and that an environmental impact study is neither needed nor required, as no federal money will be utilized for the project. The Indiana Natural Resources Commission must approve the plan, however.

Opponents contest the state’s assertions. Susan MiHalo, president of Save the Dunes, says that there has been so little thought put into the project and so few restrictions made that “the candy store is open.” She says that although a lodge may be justified for parks that have no facilities nearby, there are numerous facilities near the Dunes. And she stated that the state should not be permitting a private company to be making money on public land.

However, most troubling to her and other groups is the lack of an environmental study, the lack of mandatory LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for the proposed structure, as well as the sheer physical impact of a facility this size intruding on the lakeshore landscape. She also says there is no requirement for controlling water runoff and that the facility could threaten birds and the 1,400 species of vascular plants for which the Dunes provide vital habitat.

There is also some concern that a hotel would violate the new Marquette Greenway Plan, which was developed to protect the Indiana shoreline.

The Dunes, says MiHalo, are “part of the largest system of freshwater dunes in the world. This park should be showcased proudly based on that merit alone, not as a hotel destination.”

Proposals from developers were due May 21. To contact Save the Dunes Council, call (219) 879-3937 or visit them online.

— Elizabeth Riotto

Related Articles

An Indiana Dunes Blowout: Amphitheater for an Ecological Drama, CW, Fall 2003

Profile of Indiana Dunes State Park, CW, Winter 1999