Whitefish ready to start building City Hall

The demolition of Whitefish City Hall is on track to start in September, making way for a new three-story City Hall and parking structure on the same site.

It’s a legacy project that’s been a long time coming, Whitefish Mayor John Muhlfeld said.

“This process, site selection and architectural design has been ongoing for close to eight years,” he said.

There has been criticism of the mammoth project. At $14.6 million, some say it’s too expensive. Others contend the new City Hall should be built elsewhere to allow room for more downtown retail development. A few have rallied to restore the 1917 brick building that has been covered with a stucco-like facade for decades.

Two prominent Whitefish philanthropists and longtime fundraisers for community projects weighed in with letters to local newspapers this week, voicing opposite viewpoints.

In a letter to the Whitefish Pilot, Richard Atkinson said the city should postpone the “negative-revenue producing glam” City Hall project in light of a $66 million proposed budget that’s 63 percent bigger than last year.

John Kramer sent a letter to the Daily Inter Lake in response to Atkinson’s views, saying the City Council made the right decision to build the new City Hall on the same site.

“This project has been well-thought-out over almost a decade, with many, many hours of public input at numerous community open houses,” Kramer said, pointing out that tax-increment funds have been set aside for the project through the years.

Muhlfeld also said the project has been a “well-vetted” community effort from day one, and it’s moving forward.

“The horse has left the barn,” he said. “The council won’t be reconsidering” the building project.

The city already has secured temporary office space in the Stampede Building on Baker Avenue to house city staff during the construction. An auction of miscellaneous office furniture and other City Hall items will be held shortly after the premises are vacated, Muhlfeld said.

“I’ve been very diligent in how I’ve addressed community concerns, including meeting with the Chamber of Commerce,” he said. “I think we’ve done our due diligence. I think there are a couple of outliers trying to stir the pot. Often times it’s people who haven’t been involved in the process who weigh in at the eleventh hour.”

The council recently selected Martel Construction of Bigfork to shepherd the building project as general contractor. Mosaic Architecture of Missoula designed the building and will be retained for the duration of the project.

And there was much ado about the design.

Just two months ago the council was still deciding whether to choose a square building design at the main entrance or a chamfered corner. Both designs featured a brick building with curved archways reminiscent of the original City Hall, along with large windows and awnings over the sidewalk.

A square corner design won out in a 4-2 vote. Other design amenities weren’t unanimous, either. A curved inside wall for the lobby area was OK’d on a split vote, along with a staircase wrapped around the elevator. The mayor broke a tie vote in favor of including two elevators inside the parking structure.

Last fall the council wrestled with whether to build two or three stories and add a basement.

A full basement will be built underneath the new City Hall, and some retail space will be included within the complex at the corner of First Street and Baker Avenue. But those amenities come at additional cost. The basement added $500,000 to the project total; the third floor tacked on another $950,000, and the retail space added about $687,000.

Building a new City Hall has been part of Whitefish’s master plans for close to 30 years. The city’s 1987 Urban Renewal Plan envisioned a new facility at some point, and the location of a new City Hall also was a major component of the downtown master plan adopted in 2006.

The downtown plan at the time estimated building a new facility would cost $3.6 million, and the city could sell its existing site at the northeast corner of Second Street and Baker Avenue for about $3 million.

Built with “soft” bricks, the existing City Hall has no structural stability for earthquakes and has outlived its usefulness, city leaders decided.

It is also way too small.

The city added the former Whitefish Credit Union and another building adjacent to the City Hall complex for office space several years ago, but even so had to find separate space for the Parks and Recreation Department a few years ago.

The Police and Fire departments, along with the Municipal Court, relocated to a new Emergency Services Center on Baker Avenue five years ago.

Serious discussion about building a new City Hall began in early 2007 when BNSF Railway Co. expressed interest in selling its parking lot north of the library. At the time the railroad land was the preferred location.

Following a work session in February 2010, the City Council appointed a real estate committee including then-Mayor Mike Jenson, Finance Director Rich Knapp, council member Turner Askew and City Manager Chuck Stearns to review potential sites.

The committee came up with four options.

Projected costs ranged from roughly $5.5 million for the current City Hall site to $7.8 million for Block 46 at Third Street and Spokane Avenue, where a hotel now is under construction. The cheapest option at that time was retrofitting the Mountain West Bank building — now National Parks Realty — for about $4.2 million. It would have cost about $5.9 million to build north of the library and about $6.7 million for a Baker Avenue site near the Post Office.

In 2011 the council held a town meeting to have the community weigh in on the proposed sites. More than two-thirds of the people attending favored keeping the City Hall site where it is, charting the course for a building project expected to serve Whitefish for the next century.

Whitefish will use tax increment revenue exclusively to pay for the entire project, the council decided early on, so that taxpayers aren’t burdened with higher taxes or paying off bonds.

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