TUPPER LAKE – Two entrepreneurial women with ties to this community are pressing forward with plans to build a boutique hotel and conference center in the heart of the business district at the junction of Routes 3 and 30.

“It’s time,” Betsy Lowe of Lake Placid said Tuesday. She and her friend Nancy Howard are business partners in Tupper Lake Crossroads LLC and are ready to take an idea hatched 15 years ago from design to fruition.

“The timing is good now, and if we can get our investment plan worked out in the next few months, we could break ground next year,” Lowe said.

Part of the impetus is the recent announcement that the North Country Regional Economic Development Council considers their concept a priority project for a major grant. If the North Country is judged highly in the statewide REDC competition for the best array of economic development projects, the state could pay for $3.5 million toward Tupper Lake Crossroads, which is expected to cost $10 million.

In 1999, Lowe eyed the property as a possible site for her burgeoning nature museum, the Wild Center, but concluded the parcel was too small. She and Howard purchased it at auction anyway to eventually build a hotel.

“We did it with the idea it would be a community benefit project, to help Tupper Lake,” Lowe said. She is the founder and trustee at the Wild Center. Howard and her husband Norm were managing partners at the Wawbeek resort on Upper Saranac Lake until 2007, when they sold it.

For much of the last 15 years, Lowe was busy conceiving, launching and spearheading the museum, while Howard was running the Wawbeek. Now, with the news of the possible injection of state money, as well as the scheduled completion of roadwork and water and sewer lines in front of their property, they are ready to actively seek private investors with experience and ties to the area.

“We are in high gear,” said Lowe.

They originally purchased about one-third of an acre at 133 Park St. They augmented the lot by subsequently buying 131 Park St., 9 Mill St. and a parcel at the corner of Mill and Park for a total of just under an acre to house a 40,000-square-foot, three-story hotel.

Two years ago, Tupper Lake Crossroads commissioned a feasibility analysis, which concluded 30 to 40 rooms would be appropriate in that footprint. According to designs, it will have an indoor pool, conference center, rooftop veranda, fitness center and restaurant. The original sketches called for a flat roof, in keeping with the rest of the buildings on Park Street, but Howard thought it created a “tunnel effect” and decided to tweak it to add some gabled roofs. Inadvertently, the current design now looks akin to the Iroquois, a popular downtown hotel that burned down many years ago.

“I like that it adds a historical element to downtown,” Howard said.

When asked why they want to build in Tupper Lake, both Howard and Lowe talk excitedly about their love of the town, its authentic and friendly people, the surrounding nature, its physical crossroads at Routes 30 and 3, and recently added amenities like the Wild Center, the Adirondack Public Observatory and some new eateries and breweries.

“The community is ready for an accommodation such as the one we’ve conceived,” said Howard, “A hotel that will keep people here instead of finding lodging elsewhere is important.”

Lowe said there are some “beloved” motels, but according to tourism officials, there is a need for about 100 more rooms.

“There are so many people that are come for the day and don’t stay,” she said, noting that the Wild Center expressed strongly that the rooms they would create would be beneficial.

Both women have ties to the community. Howard, as co-owner of the Wawbeek resort from 1994 to 2007, was involved in the Tupper Lake business community and was at one time president of the Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce. Lowe owned a camp in Long Lake and learned to ski as a kid at Big Tupper Ski Area. She has a master’s degree in regional planning and worked at the state Department of Environmental Conservation, finishing her career as Region 5 director. Lowe said the two partners bring needed acumen to the project.

Howard and Lowe’s shared vision is not just of a place for visitors to sleep but also as a community asset. Lowe said one goal would be to have the pool area – which would include a large pool, paddling pool, benches and waterfall – open to locals in the off-season. She also hopes Tupper Lakers would patronize the 70-seat restaurant and bar, and possibly use the conference center for meetings.

Eventually, the hotel would employ 25 full-time staff and more in a part-time capacity, not including temporary construction jobs.

But Howard is looking for specific employees.

“The key at the Wawbeek to cultivating returning guests is to help them experience the Adirondacks for all it’s worth, including hiking and such. It is important to have staff that are knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the area,” she said.

The Wawbeek’s staff was 98 percent Tupper Lakers, she said, and she enjoyed their “wry wit, work ethic, and energetic willingness to tackle any aspect of the business.”

As far as permitting, Lowe does not anticipate any issues. She said she and Howard have the support of local officials and worked within the properties’ footprint in a business district.