Community holds its own as northern Kalispell expands

Evergreen’s business scene is changing, but one longtime business owner thinks the area is going to be O.K. in the face of northern Kalispell’s expansion.

Kalispell’s north-end expansion and other factors have resulted in several business relocations.

Walmart and Eisinger Honda already have made the move to north Kalispell, while the Subaru dealership moved to Whitefish. Ashley Furniture is in the process of closing.

Applebee’s owners are thinking about relocating north but won’t make a decision until the fall. That’s the word from Billy Ryan Jr., who serves as legal counsel for Ryan Restaurant Group, which also owns Famous Dave’s in north Kalispell and has already leased a lot two spaces down from it. What they will do with that lot is up in the air, Ryan said.

B.J. Lupton, who has owned Snappy Sport Senter since 1977 and has expanded it five times, is optimistic about the future.

“I think Evergreen is going to be fine in the near and long-term. It’ll be healthy and viable,” he said.

Snappy’s sits on the corner of U.S. 2 East and Montana 35 beyond Kalispell’s eastside city limits.

Snappy’s offers a huge stock of fishing, hunting, and camping gear, among other things. It has even become somewhat of a community hub, offering jazz every Tuesday at noon in its events center, batting cages and a fishing pond behind the business.

It is the largest dealer of fishing and game licenses in the state, Lupton said. The second-largest dealer, Wholesale Sports in Missoula, doesn’t even come close, he said.

Although Snappy’s has somewhat of a competitor on the north side of Kalispell in Sportsman & Ski Haus, Lupton estimates that the two businesses overlap on only about 30 percent of their products. “We have our own niche and they have their own niche,” he said.

“We really work on relationship and knowledge,” Lupton said of Snappy’s. “You can get all kinds of maps, instructions and safety tips” from the business.

Snappy’s clientele is more blue-collar than those who frequent the north-end shops, he said.

Kalispell’s north end has exploded in the past two to five years, Lupton said. Nonetheless, his sporting goods store hasn’t felt any pinch due to that. Its business is down slightly from 2008, but that is solely due to the economy, Lupton said.

“I don’t think the north end has diminished our business at all, not one iota,” he said.

Snappy’s clientele serves more down-to-earth common folk, Lupton said. “All I know is to try to invest in our community and relationships,” he said. His customers “value that more than glitz and glamour and commercial pulse.”

Jack Fallon, a longtime Evergreen resident who sits on both the Evergreen Water and Sewer District and Fire District boards, said Evergreen cannot compete with north Kalispell.

“Because [Evergreen] doesn’t do any promotion, it can’t control its destiny. It’s just subject to what people want it to be out here,” he said.

Fallon said Evergreen boomed in the 1990s.

“In the cyclical nature of things, every community goes through the ups and downs,” he said, adding that businesses relocated from Evergreen because they want to get where traffic patterns are.

Fallon said Evergreen used to have a couple of “big promoters,” specifically John Smithlin and Bob LeDuc. Smithlin died a number of years ago and Leduc is retired.

“No one has stepped in to take their place,” Fallon said.

Alan Gilbertson served as president of the Evergreen Business and Property Owners Association in the past. The organization hasn’t held a meeting in five years, he said. Gilbertson would like to see the group start up again, but would like to see it run more like a chamber of commerce. Someone else needs to step up, he said.

“Evergreen has a hard sell,” he said. “We’re the sixth-largest unincorporated community in Montana. We’re too big for Kalispell to take over. We’re too big for the county to do anything with.”

Gilbertson also would like to see the school district provide bus service.

Evergreen School Superintendent Joel Voytoski said that for the school district to receive state funding for buses, students would have to live at least three miles away from the school. None of the Evergreen students do, he said. The school district has expanded from 660 students in 1997, Voytoski’s first year, to 720 currently.

Pam Holmquist, who has owned Rocky Mountain Marine for 32 years, agrees with Fallon about the cyclical nature of the economy.

“The economy is bad everywhere, but I don’t expect any commercial buildings to remain vacant for long periods of time. Evergreen will always attract business because of its business-friendly environment,” she said.

Kalispell City Planner Tom Jentz also has worked in the area for quite awhile.

“Evergreen’s more of a feeling and a sense of place than an actual boundary,” Jentz said, noting that the Evergreen Water and Sewer District has different boundaries than the school district and fire district, for example.

Jentz started as Kalispell’s city planner in 2005, but prior to that was director of the Flathead Regional Development Office from 1995 to 2001 and was Tri-City Planning Office director from 2001 to 2005.

Those positions gave Jentz a sense about the unincorporated area east of Kalispell.

“Evergreen in 2000 was the retail center of Flathead County,” Jentz said. He noted the federal government paid for two-thirds of a sewer and water system for the area in 1994 and 1995. That kicked off a land boom.

“One million square feet of retail space came into Evergreen,” he said.

The boom Jentz referred to included Walmart, ShopKo, Office Max and  Conlin’s furniture (now Al’s Furniture). Kmart also doubled in size. Vann’s Electronics came in later along with a number of smaller businesses, Jentz said.

That was followed by the beginning of something big on Kalispell’s north end. Mountain View Plaza was approved in 2001 and 2002, Jentz said. That led to Home Depot, Target, Best Buy, Ross and TJ Maxx. The Spring Prairie development came to the north side in 2003 and 2004, bringing in Lowe’s and Costco. Hutton Ranch followed in 2006 with Sportsman & Ski Haus and Signature Theatres. Eisinger Honda and Eisinger Chevrolet relocated in 2007 and Walmart followed this year.

“We are a fickle people. We go for the new,” Jentz said. “What’s the long-range concept for Evergreen? It’s not good. It’s a tough economic time for everybody, and it doesn’t help to be in a location where [businesses] are leaving.”

On the positive side, Jentz noted that Kari Dodge expanded its Evergreen location in 2006 and 2007 and its Hyundai dealership moved next to Kmart. But that was prior to the recession.

“Walmart tried to expand [at its Evergreen site] but ran into Superfund issues and had to leave.

“The last 18 months have been incredibly difficult for any community activity in this valley,” he said.

Although Evergreen’s boom in the 1990s gave rise to fears of being swallowed by Kalispell, Jentz said the city doesn’t have any designs on Evergreen.

Roberta Struck remembers working for the Evergreen Water District in 1982.

The district had 1,300 customers at the time. She remembers the number because she “used to do all the bills by hand back then.” Today the district has 3,008 customers.

When the sewer district was established in 1995, it was a big change because it allowed people to subdivide their lots, said Struck, who has been the manager of district since 1993.

The city of Kalispell currently has a contract with Evergreen Water and Sewer District to treat its effluent. The city can treat up to 862,000 gallons of effluent a day, according to Kalispell Public Works Director Jim Hansz, and is currently treating between 450,000 and 460,000 gallons a day from Evergreen.

“That’s not far from where it was when I got here 14 years ago,” he said. The contract expires in 2015 but could be renewed.

Evergreen opened a new $2.96 million fire hall in January this year. The 12,700-square-foot building is located at 2236 U.S. 2 East. The number of calls for Evergreen Fire Rescue has increased from 903 in 2007 to 1,420 last year.

“Evergreen has always been a unique community,” Flathead County Commissioner Joe Brenneman said. “They have a strong fire department and strong sense of community. Now is the time to figure out [if] there might be some further organization of Evergreen to see if the community wants to deal with some of these issues.”

Brenneman estimates that Evergreen has a population between 8,000 to 9,000. That would put it between Kalispell and Whitefish in Flathead County, he said. “We’re willing to help those who want to organize.”

In March 2009, Brenneman supported a proposal from an Evergreen businessman to create an Evergreen land use advisory committee that would have developed land-use guidelines and a neighborhood plan for the area. That idea was dropped within weeks after overwhelming public opposition.

“We need to focus on people and work hard to keep the area beautiful and nurture it as best we can,” said Lupton, who has plans for 10 acres he owns just south of Snappy’s. He’s not ready to divulge his plans just yet, however.

“I do hear a lot of people commenting about the traffic on the north end,” Lupton said.

Reporter Caleb Soptelean may be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at csoptelean@dailyinterlake.com