Public hearing tonight
A public hearing on Glacier Town Center is scheduled at 7 p.m. today before the Kalispell City Council.
The hearing will cover zoning, whether the 485-acre site should be annexed, and how the combined commercial-and-residential project should be laid out in broad strokes.
The council likely will delay such decisions about the project until a later date.
Wolford Development Montana has nursed this project for years, conceivably getting it off the drawing board and into construction soon. The site is north of West Reserve Drive and east of U.S. 93.
The centerpiece would be a 577,000-square-foot outdoors shopping complex, anchored by three stores of roughly 100,000 square feet each.
The project also calls for 632 new homes. Wolford Development also is hunting for a grocery store that could be built in three or four years - a grocery store that would become the only one in Kalispell north of Idaho Street.
If annexed, Glacier Town Center would be at the core of the part of Kalispell that is growing north of West Reserve Drive.
The Kalispell Planning Board supports most of the Wolford proposal.
But controversy exists about traffic flow.
That's where the Planning Board splits from Wolford Development. And that's likely the diciest matter that the council will face on the overall proposal.
The traffic-flow situation is heavily influenced by U.S. 93 on the west side, the proposed westward extension of Rose Crossing from Whitefish Stage Road to U.S. 93, the needed widening of Whitefish Stage Road, and the likely construction of possibly 200-300 homes in the annexed Valley Ranch subdivision just north of Glacier Town Center.
Two major traffic disputes exist. They are:
. The Planning Board wanting six access roads leading from the extended Rose Crossing into Glacier Town Center. Wolford Development wants only four.
The Valley Ranch subdivision is being allowed only one access street to U.S. 93. That limitation is expected to funnel a significant amount of traffic onto the extended Rose Crossing as well as north-south through Glacier Town Center.
The developer and the Planning Board disagree about how many access roads are needed to provide the best north-south traffic flow through Glacier Town Center.
. Glacier Town Center having three new access roads -including Rose Crossing - linking it to U.S. 93.
The dispute is about the number of traffic lights and other traffic-control measures at those three intersections.
The planning board wants the fewest number of traffic lights along U.S. 93 to keep traffic flowing uninterrupted at highway speeds between West Reserve Drive and Whitefish. Eventually, the U.S. 93 bypass will connect to U.S. 93 in the West Reserve Drive area.
Wolford Development wants to put traffic lights at the intersections at Rose Crossing and the southernmost access road.
It also wants a T-shaped intersection at the central access road that would allow turns onto U.S. 93 in any direction except left. This is called a "three-quarter intersection."
Montana's Department of Transportation has not conducted its own traffic studies on this matter. But it reviewed the Wolford plans and found nothing wrong with them.
Meanwhile, the Planning Board wants to require Wolford Development to set aside a couple of acres at the future Rose Crossing intersection.
The idea is that land would be available for other types of intersections - including an expensive one in which the two highways would cross at different heights - if city and state studies call for a change. That proposed arrangement would remain in place for three years.
Also, the board wants to convert the central access road's three-quarters intersection so only northbound traffic can enter and exit there. The idea is to avoid left turns across a busy U.S. 93.
However, Planning Board members could not agree on how to address proposed traffic lights at the Rose Crossing and southernmost intersections - leaving no recommendations for the City Council.
Also today, the council is scheduled to:
. Vote on adding $152,320 to the city's $3.7 million contracts with DYK Inc. and LHC Inc. to build a 2-million-gallon water tank west of town and to link it with Kalispell's existing water system. Slightly east of West Spring Creek Road, the contractors unexpectedly ran into soft peat soil. And a piece of heavy digging equipment sank deeply into that soil.
A consultant, SK Geotechnical, has recommended that the pipeline trench be 15 feet deep to reach solid ground beneath the peat along a 380-foot segment of the pipeline. The additional work is estimated to cost $152,320.
. Vote on annexing 19 acres along the north side of Three Mile Drive, dubbed Bay Ridge Development. The council also will vote on preliminary plans to install 40 lots on the site, along with a preliminary vote on single-family residential zoning for the area.