Kalispell schools look for new location for kitchen site

Kalispell Public Schools is desperate for a new elementary central kitchen.

The facility has been at Flathead High School for years, but crumbling walls and ceilings, safety hazards and other problems have kept the district in close communication with the Flathead City-County Health Department.

“It’s not in very good shape, but they have continued to work with us, as long as we try to keep it in as good of shape as possible,” district Superintendent Darlene Schottle told the school board at a work session Tuesday. “We continue to push the envelope — but money is a problem.”

The district has been searching for a suitable place to move the kitchen, but tight funds make the search challenging. Schottle presented a possible new location at Tuesday’s meeting.

The former Meats Supply building at 601 E. Washington St. in Kalispell could be transformed into a suitable kitchen, Schottle said. Better still, the asking price for the building — which most recently was home to Vintage Hair Salon and Shamrock Catering — recently was lowered from $399,000 to $295,000.

For more of this story, see the print edition of Monday's Inter Lake.