Lack of progress at former Outlaw Inn property leaves eyesore for south Kalispell

Once a high-end convention center and later an extended-stay hotel, a south Kalispell property has experienced a fall from grace.  

Head-high weeds sprout from the cracks in concrete that spread like a spiderweb across the 9-acre property once known as the Outlaw Inn. Shattered windows give a glimpse at the graffiti-covered walls inside and garbage-laden floors despite unfulfilled promises from a developer of turning the U.S. 93 site into housing.   

At one point a broken office chair lay haphazardly atop the entrance roof that has not welcomed any guests since being bought by Portland, Oregon-based real estate enterprise Fortify Holdings in 2022. Kalispell City Council granted Fortify’s conditional use permit in February 2022 to convert the hotel into multi-family housing with up to 250 studio units.  

Before being purchased by Fortify, the hotel at the time called the FairBridge Inn & Suites and Conference Center was an extended-stay hotel with over 100 guests.  

The transfer of ownership led to the displacement of the former guests. Many were able to find housing in the area, but “there are still a handful that have not,” said Cassidy Kipp, director of project development at the Community Action Partnership of Northwest Montana.  

Kipp said the proposed project could provide a needed supply of units to help alleviate the housing crunch felt city-wide, but when Kalispell would feel again the heartbeat of the now dilapidated structure remains unclear.  

The Inter Lake reached out to Fortify Holdings via phone and email for comment but as of press time on Tuesday had not received a response.   

The site should see some construction beginning by the end of the month, said Kalispell Development Services Director Jarod Nygren during an October City Council meeting.  

Per its conditional use permit, commencement of activity must begin within 18 months of the permit being authorized. Nygren told the Inter Lake that because building permits have been filed, Fortify is not in violation of its permit.   

Many businesses that share property lines with the site said they hoped some progress would have already been made for the former hotel.   

“I just wish they would do something with it and hurry up because it is an eyesore at this point,” said Jennifer Foster, an employee at the Exxon gas station between U.S. 93 South and the former Outlaw Inn. 

Some employees and business owners say they refuse to park their cars in the abandoned lot, which becomes shrouded in darkness at night. 

“It’s almost like ‘The Shining’, it's really eerie,” said Foster, who often works the night shift and avoids going near the property as much as she can.   

Most say the property does not pose an immediate safety threat for customers or a substantial effect on business, but does pose a risk for people, mainly teenagers, who choose to trespass through the various askew doors that provide easy access inside.  

The property, which was once secured with a fence around the perimeter and hired private security, has abandoned both measures. 

“Any time you have a large unsecured area it is a magnet for criminal activity,” Kalispell Police Chief Jordan Venezio said. 

However, calls to law enforcement have decreased since the extended-stay hotel’s closure, according to Venezio. He attributed the decrease to the absence of established residents since the hotel was shut down.  

The disorderly conduct calls police previously received have migrated to reports of trespassing and vandalism.  

“We have received calls for service in the surrounding area due to a multitude of issues from vagrancy to trespassing to just overall blight in the area,” said Venezio.  

In January, the body of Jennifer Pervais of Kalispell was found on the property. Autopsy results indicated it was not a suspicious death, according to Venezio. 

AT HUCKLEBERRY’S Pet Salon, Shilo Wood said she called the police because teenagers were walking on the roof of the building. The pet grooming service operates in the same building as the nearby gas station.  

“I am worried they are going to hurt themselves,” she said, noting that portions of the roof with suspected holes were covered by tarp. 

Kipp lives near the former hotel with small children.  

“I got little kids that run around the neighborhood,” she said. “They use that cut-across and that area to access spaces.”   

She said that the city knows many people use the property as a throughway to other spaces but is not addressing it. Kipp is organizing a neighborhood group to address concerns raised about the property.  

“There’s just some really big issues that are over there, and it’s just wide open,” she said.  

Whether or not the property is secured is up to the developer, according to Nygren. How the city can address blight on private property becomes difficult to navigate.  

The property “doesn’t meet the threshold of being in violation of any city codes,” and has building permits filed, Nygren said. However, developers were notified to address tall grass as it poses a fire hazard.  

While one avenue to enforce upkeep of the property would be instituting a public nuisance ordinance, Nygren said that taking such a measure would risk imposing on property owners city-wide.  

In an interview with the Inter Lake, Councilor Ryan Hunter said he was interested in looking into an ordinance but wanted to avoid blanket penalizations.  

“I can see crafting something that kind of gets to extreme examples,” he said.  

Councilors Sam Nunnally, Sid Daoud, Chad Graham, Sandy Carlson, Kari Gabriel, Jed Fisher and Jessica Dahlman did not return requests from the Inter Lake for comment.   

During the tail end of an October council meeting, Daoud said Council should address the blight without instituting a nuisance ordinance. He brought up the possibility of threatening Fortify’s conditional use permit.  

In a September council meeting, Fisher called the property “atrocious,” requesting a work session on community decay.   

FORTIFY IS no stranger to nuisance laws, which the city of Kennewick, Washington used against it to address one of Fortify’s other properties that carries a resemblance to the one in Kalispell.   

Fortify began buying old motels in the Tri-Cities area (Kennewick, Pasco and Richland) of Eastern Washington in 2021. The development company spent $38.1 million to buy six local motels and nearly $13 million more to convert five of them into tiny apartments, according to an article from the Tri-City Herald.  

The developer brought more supply to the area's strained housing market, although most studio apartments went for around $900 a month, according to the article. However, its purchase of an old Motel 6 turned out not much different to the current state of the former Outlaw Inn. The article called the project an “outlier in the Fortify portfolio.”  

The plan was to turn the old motel into seasonal housing for farm workers, with residents arriving in 2023. But the property was left vacant in the fall, prompting the city of Kennewick to declare it a nuisance. 

When Fortify failed to secure the property by a city-set deadline, Kennewick hired a contractor to get the job done and diverted the cost to Fortify through a tax lien, according to the article.  

Reporting from the Tri-City Herald revealed $160,000 worth of unpaid property taxes, which Fortify has since made efforts to pay it off since the publishing of the article, said Wendy Culverwall, a reporter for the Tri-City Herald.  

Fortify has also bought up properties in Oregon, Idaho and California. 

The head of Fortify, Sean Keys, was also revealed to be one of Oregon’s largest tax delinquents with almost $1 million in unpaid personal taxes, according to a report from the Oregonian.  

Keys was also involved in a 2019 federal criminal case in Oregon when he was the real estate manager for IRIS, a venture capital firm, whose investment manager was sentenced to prison "for running a multimillion-dollar real estate scam that cost scores of investors their retirement savings,” according to an article from OregonLive. Keys paid an undisclosed settlement in the case.  

Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at junderhill@dailyinterlake.com and 758-4407.  

    Shattered windows at the former Fairbridge Inn & Suites and Outlaw Convention Center in Kalispell on Tuesday, Oct. 1. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

An indoor pool is shown through a smashed sliding glass door at the former Fairbridge Inn & Suites and Outlaw Convention Center in Kalispell on Tuesday, Oct. 1. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
Casey Kreider

    The former Fairbridge Inn & Suites and Outlaw Convention Center in Kalispell on Tuesday, Oct. 1. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    A smashed glass door left open at the former Fairbridge Inn & Suites and Outlaw Convention Center in Kalispell on Tuesday, Oct. 1. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Shattered windows at the former Fairbridge Inn & Suites and Outlaw Convention Center in Kalispell on Tuesday, Oct. 1. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Shattered panes of glass at the former Fairbridge Inn & Suites and Outlaw Convention Center in Kalispell on Tuesday, Oct. 1. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Old units with smashed or boarded up windows and doors along Third Avenue East at the former Fairbridge Inn & Suites and Outlaw Convention Center in Kalispell on Tuesday, Oct. 1. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider