New HVAC business sparks debate over future of Kalispell core

A nondescript building at 707 West Center St. in Kalispell has become an example for the kind of positive change that can come from the effort to rip out the railroad tracks that run through town and replace them with a pedestrian trail.

The building was most recently home to an auto repair shop. The facade is plain and tan and not in any way flashy. The inside is largely the same. In many ways, it fits with a lot of other buildings in that part of town.

Now the auto shop is gone and the building’s owner, Jeremy Waters, has been approved to move a heating, ventilation and air conditioning business into the new space.

When his proposal first came before the Kalispell Planning Board in May, members met it with skepticism. City officials have grand visions for the new trail and the economic corridor they hope it will forge across town.

The discussion shed light on how a city gets from where it is now to where it wants to go.

An HVAC dealer isn’t the kind of business the council members had in mind. The fact remains, however, that the trail is still years off from completion.

At the June 4 City Council meeting, representatives from Alta Planning, a firm hired by the city to help plan the new trail, said construction was likely to begin in the spring of 2020, making any usable trail years off.

In the meantime, older industrial buildings, like one on West Center Street, remiain scattered along the tracks.

“It’s a prominent big property right along the trail corridor, so whatever its use it will have a big impact on the trail and whatever is around it,” Planning Board Member George Giavasis pointed out during the hearing.

The concerns were eased when Waters addressed the board, saying he bought the building because he wanted to be along the future trail corridor and that he was simply planning ahead. He called the HVAC business an “interim use.”

“We bought this property looking forward to the tracks coming out and the potential,” Waters said. “We like all the stuff [developer Mick] Ruis is doing in Columbia Falls and stuff and that is kind of our vision at this time.”

He said his family already owns an HVAC business in Evergreen, and using this space on West Center Street is a stepping stone for that business. In the meantime, he could fix up the building, he said.

“Down the road we would like to continue with the city’s proposed planning for sure,” Waters said of the city’s vision to redevelop the area with mixed uses.

Planning Director Tom Jentz said at the hearing that promoting incremental development was the best way forward in his opinion.

“Envision where we are today,” Jentz said. “We like to call it the ‘now, but not yet.’ We are still 18 to 24 months from having a trail. What you are seeing is the first step in what is still an industrial area over there.”

Jentz said seeing local owners buying into the future vision is a good thing, and promoting intermediary steps would ultimately help the area be more desirable.

“They caught the vision and the dream,” Jentz said.

The conditional-use permit was unanimously approved by the City Council.

“We think it’s baby steps in the right direction,” Jentz said.

Reporter Peregrine Frissell can be reached at (406) 758-4438 or pfrissell@dailyinterlake.com.