Make your voice heard on City Hall project in Whitefish

The city of Whitefish will hold a collaborative planning session on Tuesday to get public comments on the proposed design of a new City Hall and parking structure.

The meeting will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. at City Hall, 402 E. Second St.

Representatives from Mosaic Architecture of Missoula and city officials will attend the meeting.

The new $11.5 million City Hall complex will be built on the location of the existing City Hall.

Mayor John Muhlfeld said early on in the design process that it’s important to involve city residents because the new structure will be a prominent facility in the downtown area. To that end, the public was invited to attend a design contest held last year that involved four architectural firms pitching their ideas for the new structure.

The process of selecting the current City Hall location for the new city government building and a parking structure took months of deliberation by the City Council that ended in a tie vote. 

Muhlfeld broke the tie in favor of building at the current location.

Council members had fundamental differences about whether using a full city block in downtown is the best use of that property. 

A new City Hall has been in the long-range plans for Whitefish since 1987 when it was included in an urban renewal plan. 

In 2005 a downtown master plan identified the need for a new facility.