Downtown plan a reality for Whitefish

After 18 years, downtown Whitefish finally has a master plan.

All but one City Council member Monday voted in favor of the plan that will become an amendment to Whitefish's forthcoming growth policy.

Portland consulting firm Crandall Arambula has worked with Whitefish community leaders for nearly two years. But it was 1988 when the first discussions about a downtown plan were held, business owner Don Nelson told the council. For a variety of reasons, a comprehensive planning effort was put on hold at several intervals through the years.

The Heart of Whitefish, a nonprofit group of downtown business and civic leaders, rejuvenated the effort about four years ago, soliciting pledges from local businesses to help pay for the consultants.

With the potential for roughly $85 million in private and public investment, the plan provides a framework for priority projects and potential amenities that could be built in downtown Whitefish during the next two or three decades.

"The study is absolutely excellent," retired professor Dick Solberg said.

Solberg's only concern was the long-range proposal for Whitefish Landing, a manmade water channel off the Whitefish River that would include a 25-acre resort development.

"It's a bad idea," Solberg cautioned. "It looks like a dead-end slough. I urge you to study it very carefully."

Ian Collins, who did thesis research on brownfield environmental cleanup sites, said the Whitefish Landing has become "a bit of an Achilles heel" in the downtown plan, and he suggested the city pursue brownfield site grants designed to stimulate development of contaminated railroad property near downtown Whitefish.

"These are prime sites for redevelopment, and there's access to state and federal money," Collins said. "Usually the railroad is willing to give up the land."

Heart of Whitefish spokesman Gary Stephens said that the Whitefish Landing "is not something we're committed to by adopting the plan."

"Don't get hung up on these long-range projects. Don't lose your vision," he told the council.

Anticipation of a downtown makeover has spurred private investment, he said, including an expansion of his own downtown store, The Toggery.

Consultant George Crandall said that both public and private enterprise will drive the plan, with a target ratio of $7 or $8 in private development for every dollar spent of public money.

The only opposition to the downtown plan came from council member Velvet Phillips-Sullivan, who maintained that the state Department of Environmental Quality hadn't been properly brought into discussions about potential contamination of railroad property that would be targeted for redevelopment.

"I'm concerned about the city buying property while there are still environmental issues," she said.

Phillips-Sullivan asked the council to table a decision on the plan, but the rest of the council chose to move forward.

City Manager Gary Marks assured Phillips-Sullivan that the appropriate environmental assessments would be made as projects are completed.

The city expects to invest more than $9 million on projects such as a new City Hall at $3.6 million; a new emergency-services facility at $3.5 million; Central Avenue improvements at $2 million, and a parking garage on the current City Hall site at $1.6 million. City costs would be offset by the sale of the current City Hall site and city property at the corner of Spokane Avenue and Second Street to private companies that would develop retail space there.

To get the ball rolling, the council voted to include Central Avenue improvements on the resort-tax priority list with a target date of 2008-2009 for reconstruction.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.