Whitefish at 100
Community emerges as 'the little town that could'
During the city's centennial year, Mayor Andy Feury sees Whitefish as a teenager with acne.
He explains.
"Communities have lives just like people," Feury philosophizes. "At 100 years, we're sort of at the teenage years with our rapid growth. We're ungainly, with a few skin problems here and there. We're not comfortable with growing as a teen."
In its infancy, Whitefish was defined by logging and the railroad. Whitefish author Dorothy M. Johnson described Whitefish then as "boisterous and howling and always outgrowing its britches - too raw to be pretty and too new to be quaint."
While logging and the railroad are still part of the landscape, the town has indeed outgrown its original dressings and has emerged as a destination resort town.
Log cabins on Whitefish Lake have given way to trophy homes. Upscale restaurants, high-end shops and art galleries have replaced many of the more ordinary cafes and general stores of yesteryear. Old-timers lament that they don't know many people these days when they walk down Whitefish's main street.
Yet it is Whitefish's small-town feel, its quaintness, that draws outsiders in and makes them stay. Growth marches on, though, and therein lies the conundrum, Feury says.
"How do we maintain Whitefish as the community it is today?" he ponders, shifting back to his teenager analogy. "We're maturing. We've got enough history now to understand the mechanism of growth. It's how you deal with it that shows how you will be as an adult.
"With teens, if you give them proper guidance, they'll learn the right lessons. They'll do their homework and grow up to be good adults."
Whitefish is going through growth homework right now on several fronts.
The city has embarked on a downtown master plan project aimed at enhancing and preserving the downtown corridor.
Whitefish has many assets to draw from, said Portland consultant George Crandall, whose firm is developing the downtown master plan.
"Whitefish has one of the great main streets we see anywhere in the country," Crandall recently told an audience of 200 community leaders. "It's healthy and intact. The bottom line is you're in very good shape."
Crandall and his business partner Don Arambula have cautioned Whitefish leaders that their city is destined to change considerably over the next two decades whether or not they're ready for the change. Population of the resort town, which was estimated at 5,489 in July 2002, is on track to increase 38 percent by 2025. Up to 180,000 square feet of retail space will be added to accommodate a bigger city, the consultants predicted.
Two weeks ago the consultants unveiled drawings of what Whitefish might look like in the future, including multistory parking garages dressed up with retail fronts and a manmade waterway dubbed the Whitefish Landing.
The landing involves the creation of a narrow waterway along existing railroad property between Edgewood Place and the railroad tracks, stretching as far east as the viaduct. Crandall and Arambula envisioned a resort strip that would not only allow access to the river and lake but also opportunities for commercial and housing development.
It may seem far-reaching and expensive, but if there's one thing other cities have learned from Whitefish, it's that if there's a will, there's a way.
"People look at that [Whitefish Landing] as a great thing and a huge improvement," Feury said. "Our approach is 'Why not? Let's try.' That's been the attitude here for a hundred years."
Attitude is everything, he added.
"We've always taken this approach. It's not a thing unique to this time," Feury observed. "The nature of the people who have chosen to make Whitefish their home is work really hard to make it home, and community development is a part of that."
Whitefish residents have raised roughly $15 million over the past decade to pay for community projects that have ranged from an indoor ice rink to a new aquatic and health center. The ability to consistently complete such projects has put Whitefish on the map in fund-raising circles.
"It takes perseverance. Money is always hard to raise," Whitefish fund-raiser Dave Stewart said in an earlier interview.
Stewart headed the early 1990s train depot renovation and was equally involved in fund-raising for the new Whitefish library and performing arts center built in the late 1990s.
When he got involved with the depot renovation, he found a sense of apathy among the locals.
"Many people didn't care and just shrugged their shoulders," he recalled. "Everyone thought it was great, but not fantastic enough to give us twenty bucks."
Stewart today is the new president of the Whitefish Community Foundation, an organization that started in 2000 and has already gathered nearly $8 million in bequests and $250,000 cash in its endowment fund.
Money doesn't solve all the problems of a town with growing pains, though, Feury said. A booming construction industry puts people to work but doesn't guarantee they'll be able to afford to live in Whitefish.
Affordable housing is high on the list of concerns city leaders have about Whitefish. Rising real-estate prices are nudging more and more workers out of Whitefish.
Despite the challenge, progress is being made on the affordable housing front in Whitefish, said SueAnn Grogan, executive director of the Whitefish Housing Authority. A voluntary inclusionary zoning ordinance passed last year gives developers density bonuses and other incentives to build affordable units.
As of February, the housing authority had 19 units reserved for low- and moderate-income buyers.
The preservation of 13,000 acres of state school-trust lands surrounding Whitefish is also on the list of top concerns. Last month a neighborhood plan for the 13,000 acres was OK'd by the county planning board; it's awaiting county commissioner approval that would include it in the county's overall growth policy.
Preservation of both land and the community's character is paramount as growth races along in Whitefish, Feury said.
"We'll continue to see a transition in our economy," he said. "As members of the City Council, we're stewards of our time. We strive to enhance our city and make it better.
"We've done so many things other towns haven't been able to do," Feury continued. "We've been so successful with these public-private partnerships, we've become the little town that could. I'm glad to have been a part of it."
Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com