Traffic-light night

Briefing on 'Wolford's mall' planned

The Daily Inter Lake

The Kalispell City Council will begin pondering tonight how many new traffic lights it might want along the west side of Glacier Town Center.

The council will be briefed on the city Planning Board's recommendations on annexing, zoning and mapping out Glacier Town Center - a mall-and-housing complex several years in the making.

Tonight's briefing will be during a workshop session, at which no votes are legally allowed.

Glacier Town Center is more commonly known as "Bucky Wolford's mall."

Wolford Development Montana wants to build the project on 485 acres north of West Reserve Drive and east of U.S. 93.

The project's centerpiece is to be a 577,000-square-foot outdoors shopping complex, anchored by three buildings of roughly 100,000 square feet each.

The Planning Board and developer more or less agree on the proposed zoning, zoning modifications and most of the preliminary plans for the project, which is expected to take to at least 2020 to finish.

However, the board and Wolford Development disagree on a pair of traffic-flow issues - matters that the City Council likely will begin tackling in January.

The (apparently) easier issue is that the Planning Board recommends six northern access roads to Glacier Town Center, while Wolford Development wants to put in only four.

The tougher issue deadlocked the Planning Board.

With the board's blessing, Wolford Development plans to extend Rose Crossing from Whitefish Road to U.S. 93. It also plans to install two additional access roads from U.S. 93 into the project's western side.

The dispute springs from the Planning Board's long-held stance for the fewest traffic lights possible between West Reserve Drive and Whitefish.

That's because the eventual U.S. 93 bypass around western Kalispell would connect with U.S. 93 at West Reserve Drive. And the board wants fast, unimpeded traffic to flow between Whitefish and the bypass.

But Wolford Development wants traffic lights on U.S. 93 to help vehicles enter Glacier Town Center from the west.

Right now, Wolford Development supports the Montana Department of Transportation's tentative plans to put:

. A traffic light at the Rose Crossing intersection.

. A T-shaped intersection at the central westside access road that allows all turns except left ones onto U.S. 93. This is called a "three-quarters intersection."

. A traffic light at the site's southernmost intersection.

However, the Montana Department of Transportation has frequently acceded to local governments' wishes on routes and traffic lights as long as safety is not compromised.

Last week, the board recommended that the council :

. Require Wolford Development to set aside a couple of acres at the Rose Crossing intersection. The idea is that land would be available for other types of intersections if studies by the state and city call for such a change. That arrangement would remain for three years.

. Convert the central access road's three-quarter intersection so only northbound traffic can enter and leave that street. The idea is to avoid left turns on across a busy U.S. 93.

However, Planning Board members could not agree on how to deal the proposed traffic lights at Rose Crossing and the southernmost access road - including whether to remove or keep them.

Consequently, the traffic lights dispute faces the council with no clear direction from the board.

At its regular 7 p.m. meeting prior to the workshop session, the council is scheduled to:

. Present the Community Lifesaving Award to real-estate agent Chris Fraser, who performed cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on a customer, Michael Golembeski when his heart stopped Nov. 25 at the West Venture real-estate office.

Fraser's CPR kept Golembeski alive until Kalispell firefighter-paramedics arrived less than three minutes later to revive the victim.

The ambulance firefighter/paramedics at the scene were Joe Hansen and Brandon French. A fire engine crew of three firefighter /paramedics - Capt. Dave Dedman, Lt. Craig Fischer and Timothy Gaston - were also at the scene.

. Vote on giving final approval to the annexing 165 acres southwest of Kalispell plus the zoning, zoning modifications and preliminary plans to build 531 homes on 140 acres - Willow Creek - of the site.

The council gave preliminary approval to the annexation and plans Dec. 3.