By T.J. GILLES

For The Outpost

The new owners of the downtown Northern Hotel seek to put Billings back on the map with the lone four-star hotel between the Twin Cities and Seattle.

At a gathering this month at Cline Fine Art downtown, Billings native Mike Nelson explained plans to restore the North Broadway landmark to its former glory. Mr. Nelson met his wife, Judith, at West High School, and following their graduation from Montana State University Billings, followed her to a teaching job in Las Vegas.

He and brother Chris (now of Bozeman) bought the long-abandoned and longer-beleaguered Northern last year for $2.5 million and expect to have invested around $20 million by the time the nine-story landmark re-opens by the summer or fall of 2011. The $20 million is backed by Recovery Zone Facility Bonds backed by the city and underwritten by the federal Recovery Act stimulus program.

This month has marked a milestone and a setback. Asbestos installed when the current version was finished in the 1940s was completely removed, but construction was delayed – and downtown businesses literally dried up for several hours – when a subcontractor accidentally pierced a water main.  Previously, renovation work had been stalled by a fire that caused no real damage.

Mr. Nelson said the updated Northern will have 160 units, including about 40 multiple-room suites, plus 12,000 square feet of meeting and convention space that can be partitioned into as many as 10 venues, two ground-floor restaurants and retail space, including a “branded” gift shop selling T-shirts, tote bags and other items featuring the Northern’s logo.

Breakfast and lunch will be offered in a “retro diner” named Bernie’s (after their mother) while the space which used to house the elegant Golden Belle will host supper diners in style.

Mr. Nelson moved back to Billings this year while his wife and daughter Sarah finished the academic year in Vegas as an assistant principal and a graduating senior. They moved to Billings after the school year was complete.

Mr. Nelson said he’ll try to re-use some familiar fixtures of the nostalgic old haunt.

“I still have the gong,” Mr. Nelson said of the Golden Belle’s trademark, “and we’ve still got most of the old paintings” that graced restaurants, the lobby and meeting rooms of old facility. He confessed that employees left him only the gong mallet but hid the gong itself because he couldn’t repress the impulse to strike it.

His basement office is in the old Petroleum Club, where he said Richard M. Nixon once gave a speech before the upper crust of the oil patch years before he became president. The club since has moved down to the Crowne Plaza (formerly the Sheraton), which enjoys a three-star rating.

“We’ve known that Billings is ready for this type of sophistication,” Mr. Nelson told about a dozen people at the gathering. “This is the type of sophistication; a vibrancy … there’s a buzz here.”

The rooms and suites will be equipped with the latest electronic gizmos, such as access to 5,000 global Internet online publications and 3,000 TV stations.

“If you’re from Helsinki and want to watch the 12:30 Helsinki news, you can do that,” he said.

The refurbished 10-story facility will have top-drawer conservation measures, especially water-conserving showerheads and toilets. “I’ve been in the desert for 30 years,” Mr. Nelson said of Las Vegas, where despite the neon excesses, water conservation is not just “in” but mandatory. He said recycling and conservation standards will be up to the Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy Engineering Design program (LEED) but the Nelsons probably won’t apply for certification because of expense and restrictions.

“I know how to run a resort; I know how to run a hotel,” said Mr. Nelson, who has been in the Vegas hospitality business as his wife worked up the ranks of academe. As far as design of the hotel in and out, he said, what played in Vegas will stay in Vegas.

The Northern’s design will include wall tiles made from recycled cattle horns and, if possible, fireplaces and other rock materials from Montana quarries, “all put together by people from Billings who designed it and local artisans who put it in,” said Mr. Nelson.

“That’s the whole theme behind the Northern,” he said. “Our designers call the theme Western Chic, or Cowboy Hip. I think it is rather sophisticated.”

“There won’t be any wagon-wheel chandeliers,” he promised.