Whitefish loses chance for medical facility

A $4.6 million eating disorder clinic that had been slated for groundbreaking this spring in Whitefish instead will be built in Missoula.

Developers of the project said the clinic is a potential contender for federal stimulus money and that Missoula offered a more 'streamlined and welcoming" process to accommodate the project.

Steve Bryson, a Whitefish licensed clinical professional counselor, and his partner, health-care facility developer John Bennett, had planned to build the 24-bed nonprofit treatment facility at North Valley Hospital's campus south of Whitefish.

Now they're working with the Missoula Area Economic Development Corp. to build on an 8.5-acre tract on Lolo Creek southwest of Missoula.

"It was a long, difficult decision," Bryson said. "This would've been a great match for Whitefish, but the labyrinth of getting [approval] through the city is something I didn't think I could trust."

To qualify for up to $450,000 of federal stimulus money, the clinic has to be shovel-ready, and that's something Missoula could promise while Whitefish could not.

"Missoula has been very streamlined and very organized. They've been quite helpful," Bryson said. "It's a business decision."

The facility is the culmination of more than two years of research, planning and development by Bryson. The nearest dedicated eating-disorder facility is more than 600 miles away.

"I can't wait another year," Bryson said. "Right here in

this valley people die from eating disorders. We have a very visionary model … I think we'll rewrite the book on eating disorders."

Having the University of Montana at arm's length "is certainly something that pushed it over the top" to locate in Missoula, Bryson said. However, the university also would have supplied interns and research if the center had been built in Whitefish.

Bryson said construction is expected to begin this summer, with the Missoula facility opening before summer 2010.

"I'm just devastated," Whitefish City Council member Turner Askew said. "Of all the things we had a chance to get and to have blown it."

Askew, a longtime economic-development advocate and member of the North Valley Hospital board, said he wants the hospital and city to proceed with the planning process, just in case a deal can't be worked out in Missoula.

Bryson acknowledged that the hospital board "went to bat" to try to work within the city's approval process, but added that once he had made the decision to go with Missoula, there was no turning back.

"This has been a real wake-up call," Askew said. "At full build-out, this would have been 32 high-paying jobs for Whitefish."

Former North Valley Hospital administrator Craig Aasved, who initially had consulted with Bryson and now is chief operating officer at St. Patrick Hospital in Missoula, said he was not involved with the negotiations that prompted the location switch.

"I had no involvement in the reason to move to Missoula," Aasved said. "It's a huge bummer for Whitefish. I think the caveat Missoula has is the university."

Bryson said the treatment facility will be affiliated with St. Patrick Hospital and its nonprofit corporate parent company, Providence Health & Services.

Whitefish City Manager Chuck Stearns said the city's involvement began in November 2008 when North Valley Hospital submitted an application for a neighborhood plan amendment to accommodate the construction of the eating-disorder facility at the hospital campus.

That application was scheduled for a public hearing in January, but at the hospital's request, the hearing was postponed until March, according to Planning Board minutes.

Stearns said the Whitefish Public Works Department noted at the time that a traffic study hadn't yet been included in the application, and the hospital put the request on hold until the traffic study was complete and a site review could be done.

The requested amendment was never put back on the agenda, however.

To meet the requirements to be placed on the April 16 agenda, the hospital would have had to complete its submittal by March 2, Stearns said. The city legally must advertise an upcoming hearing 21 days in advance, and adjacent landowners also must be notified.

Bryson said the hospital's engineer was told by city officials that the April Planning Board agenda was full, but that the hearing could be held in May.

"If they [North Valley Hospital] were on the May agenda, they could get all the approvals at the June 1 council meeting," Stearns said. "For a while that seemed to be working. Then a number of things transpired" and the decision was made to move the project to Missoula.

Stearns said city officials will discuss the turn of events and "think about ways applications can be handled differently."

But when developers go through the planned-unit development process, essentially they're rewriting zoning rules and "there's a lot of due process involved," Stearns said.

Planned-unit development plans allow developers more flexibility to work within zoning regulations, but with that flexibility comes process, he added.

"People shouldn't change zoning easily and not carefully," Stearns said. "Otherwise, the protections in the zoning code aren't as meaningful."

Bryson said he intends to move to Missoula to work at the treatment facility, but his wife, Cooky, a longtime nurse at North Valley Hospital, will remain in Whitefish.

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