Kalispell adopts railroad corridor plan

After two years of aggressive outreach, Kalispell has an official dream for its railroad corridor: The Core Area Revitalization Plan.

The Kalispell City Council voted to formally adopt the 60-page document on Monday.

Council member Jim Atkinson said the ambitious plan reminds him of when Kalispell had a dream for the downtown that led to the construction of Kalispell Center Mall.

“All the citizens had a dream, saw it fulfilled and felt very good about it,” Atkinson said. “This is a bigger dream.”

The 364-acre planning area follows a spur of railroad tracks across Kalispell. It is bordered by Washington Street to the north, First Street to the south and city limits to the east and west.

The revitalization plan envisions a swath of run-down, underutilized industrial land along the railroad tracks gradually redeveloped into a vibrant urban core that complements and builds upon the adjacent downtown.

Some of its major goals include removing the railroad tracks and building a linear park in their place; encouraging dense residential and commercial development throughout the corridor; putting in new sidewalks and bike paths and north-south street connections; and building public amenities such as community or convention centers and an outdoor amphitheater near Woodland Park.

“This is a vision, bits and pieces, concepts to show that yes, this is a place worth investing in,” Kalispell Planning Director Tom Jentz said. “It provides the first step to work on bringing new life and vitality into this core area.”

Funded with a $175,000 planning grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, the revitalization plan was created through a lengthy and inclusive public process. It included one-on-one interviews with owners of about 60 percent of the private property in the planning area, multiple open houses, draft presentations and the formation of a volunteer steering committee that will stay active to help implement the plan.

“The outreach we did made this plan as popular and successful as it was. It is not a staff-driven plan,” Jentz said.

With the revitalization plan finalized and adopted, the question going forward is how much of its vision can be realized.

Kalispell hired Willdan Financial Services, based in California, to complete a market analysis for the entire core area and study the feasibility of some of the plan’s biggest goals.

Chief among those is the goal of pulling out the railroad tracks that gave rise to Kalispell more than a century ago and moving the last three businesses that use them to a 40-acre rail park the Flathead County Economic Development Authority plans to open at the former McElroy and Wilken gravel pit east of Whitefish Stage Road.

The grant-funded feasibility study is due by March.

It will spell out what goals might be accomplished in the near-term, mid-term and long-term, provide estimate costs, identify funding sources and sequence projects, including “catalyst projects” meant to kick start a virtuous cycle of private investment, one employee of Willdan Financial Services told Kalispell Planning Board members earlier this month.

The revitalization plan envisions the sort of infill development that downtown Kalispell needs, said Pam Carbonari, a volunteer member of the core area steering committee and director of the Kalispell Downtown Association and Kalispell Business Improvement District.

It has the potential to attract new businesses and residents into Kalispell’s core and bring life to the area bordering the traditional downtown that has lost its industrial base. That would not only complement the adjacent downtown, but add directly to it. “It’s a major part of Kalispell that has long needed to be refurbished,” Carbonari said of the railroad corridor.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.