Cottage Grove study finds major hotel-night leakage; EDA agrees to buy 3.59-acre site to attract hotel

The Cottage Grove Economic Development Authority voted June 17 to authorize purchase of a 3.59-acre parcel adjacent to Walmart as the city steps up efforts to recapture hotel demand after a consultant estimated roughly 58,000 room nights leaked outside the city in the most recent 12 months.

The finding comes from a hotel-room leakage analysis presented to the EDA by HES Convention Sports and Entertainment. Tom Husinski, managing director of HES Convention Sports and Entertainment, introduced project leads Henry Detmer and Tarika Jain, who presented the data and methods the firm used.

“Over the last full 12 months, 99,500 distinctive overnight visits were made to Cottage Grove,” Henry Detmer said during the presentation, and the team estimated “about 58,000” room nights leaked to hotels outside the city. Detmer summarized the local lodging supply as 107 rooms in Cottage Grove (about 76 upper‑midscale rooms and roughly 31 economy rooms) and said that supply is “insufficient to meet the lodging needs…