State builds new campus for resource agencies

The ground is already well-broken, but an unusual groundbreaking ceremony was held Monday for a new campus that will mostly accommodate the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.

In recent weeks, heavy equipment has been preparing the eight-acre site just south of the Flathead National Forest Supervisors office off Stillwater Road.

"As you can see, the ground is sufficiently broken out here, so the shovel ceremony wasn't quite going to do it," said Greg Poncin, manager of the department's Kalispell Unit.

Instead, veteran logger Bill Crismore and Marcia Sheffels, the Flathead County superintendent of schools, took a crosscut saw to a white pine that had to be removed from the current DNRC campus on U.S. 93.

It was "planted" into the ground at the new site Monday morning, symbolizing the partnership between the state agency, the wood products industry and Montana School Trust Lands.

Also on site was a much larger saw log from the state's Foothills timber sale. It will be milled into a reception countertop for the new building by RBM Lumber of Columbia Falls.

The new Department of Natural Resources and Conservation building will provide 17,900 square feet of space for the Kalispell Unit of the Northwest Land Office. The agency's Water Resources Division, the Montana Department of Environmental Quality and the Flathead Basin Commission - all currently located in separate scattered locations - also will use the new building.

An adjoining, 5,423-square-foot building also is part of the overall $4.1 million project, serving as a cache for regional firefighting equipment and supplies and headquarters for firefighting operations.

"From the standpoint of public service and meeting our various natural resource missions, it only makes sense to have all of DNRC's regional operations under one roof," Poncin said. "And the DEQ and the Flathead Basin Commission are longtime partners in a lot of the work we do in the Flathead."

Bob Sandman, the Northwest Land Office regional manager, said the current Kalispell Unit office was built along the highway in the 1950s, with regional office additions constructed in the 1970s. The new building will accommodate about 60 state employees, he said.

Depending on the outcome of a $6.9 million bond request on the November ballot, part of the DNRC campus property could be used as the site for a proposed 11,800-square-foot building to house a consolidated countywide emergency dispatch center.

At Monday's event, Flathead County Commissioner Joe Brenneman said the land is "ideal" for a new 911 dispatch center.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com