When plans to open a Shopko department store in Whitefish’s Mountain Mall displaced eight small businesses, a swell of orphaned merchants rippled through the community in search of a new home.
What they found – or didn’t find – underscores the plight of small businesses here – although they are the heart of what drives the community, there is a dearth of affordable locations in Whitefish for small business owners to lease.
Other mall retailers have stood firm, but when the department store opens in September, the business owners anticipate an increase in rent that will make it untenable.
“They’ll probably bump it up out of my range,” said Stu Say, owner of Montana Olive Oil Inc. and SenSAYetional Golf, both located in the mall. “Right now I’m just making rent.”
Whitefish Dance Studio, the Flying Fish Kids’ Gym, Nature Baby Outfitter, Taco Del Sol, Club Bed Tanning, Bonsai Brewing Project and Ben Franklin are among the other businesses affected by the construction of Shopko.
“It was an unfortunate thing,” said Say, who is moving Montana Olive Oil Inc. to a Kalispell location in June. “They call this the Mall Morgue but those businesses were kicking tail. The brewery did a wonderful job, and so did Taco Del Sol.”
Graham Hart opened Bonsai Brewing Project in the mall in January 2014 to tremendous fanfare. But when Hart learned he’d have to move the nascent brewery, he found his options were limited.
He was considering building or leasing a marketplace that could accommodate all of the errant businesses when, through a stroke of luck, he found his current location at 549 Wisconsin Ave., in a location he could not have afforded without the help of a family friend, who purchased the property and agreed to lease it to Hart.
“There’s the demand for new small business in Whitefish. There’s just not the infrastructure,” Hart said recently from behind the bar of his bustling new brewery, which re-opened last month.
Lauren Oscilowski recently applied for and received a conditional use permit to open a distillery and tasting room called Spotted Bear Spirits in a location on Railway Street, across from Depot Park in downtown Whitefish. Although it costs more to lease the downtown space, she opted for the location because of the foot traffic inherent to the city center, as well as the proximity to the Whitefish Farmers Market.
“That was the balance,” she said. “I looked at a number of different commercial spaces on the outskirts of town and ultimately decided to pay more per square foot to be downtown. I feel incredibly fortunate that I found this location because there weren’t many options.”
The shortage of real estate in Whitefish is a familiar stumbling block for the owners of Hurraw!, a vegan lip balm company.
When Neil Stuber and Corrie Colbert set their sights on expanding the home-based Whitefish business, they asked the city for property tax incentives and financial help with utility fees.
Unable to find a viable existing building for their light-manufacturing operation, city officials advised them that they could receive assistance with costs associated with building a new facility, and they’ve since constructed a facility in the Baker Commons business park.
“Many companies, including ours, choose to remain in Whitefish despite the lack of infrastructure and support, not because of it,” Stuber said. “It becomes a personal decision as opposed to a business decision. That being said, entrepreneurial spirit thrives on possibility, not availability. We’re interested in what Whitefish can become.”
Conversely, Kalispell and Columbia Falls have a glut of available storefronts and open-space opportunities in prominent locations, but attracting long-term tenants has proven problematic.
The question of what Whitefish can and will become has been at the fore of discussions about how to develop the Highway 93 West corridor, particularly in a section of the corridor that extends from Ramsey Avenue to the Whitefish River Veteran’s Memorial Bridge. The corridor land-use plan’s steering committee identified that area for “creative future planning” to promote economic development and entrepreneurship as the area transitions.
In 2007, the city’s growth policy recommended that a corridor plan be developed with specific goals and recommended actions for the area that consider land use, scale, transportation, landscaping, urban design and commercial development.
But in Whitefish, phrases like “creative future planning” draw intense scrutiny, and while much of the corridor plan does not recommend any land-use changes, one aspect recommends a zone change to a residential area north of Highway 93 and adjacent to the Idaho Timber property.
The committee didn’t recommend full-scale commercial development in the area, and is sensitive to new retail that might compete with downtown. But small business opportunities such as artisan manufacturing in small buildings, allowed as conditional uses, were deemed appropriate in the plan on a case-by-case basis, as were sandwich or coffee shops. The committee also discussed the potential for a rail link, business incubators, and mixed use on the Idaho Timber site and adjacent residential area known as “Area B” that fronts the river.
“They felt that area could be an ideal complement to downtown,” Whitefish Planning Director David Taylor wrote in his staff report. “Ideas such as a riverfront paddle board manufacturing business with accessory sales or rentals, an adjacent microbrewery or coffee shop with second floor residential uses were discussed as a way to better link the Whitefish River with the downtown and trail system.”
But the plan has received pushback from residents who worry that any changes to the zoning will compromise the residential integrity of the area.
Anne Shaw Moran serves on the steering committee and represents the owner-occupied residential district of the corridor, and said while she agrees with 90 percent of the plan she objects to any changes to zoning.
“What’s being proposed in this plan that is concerning to residents is a whole new zoning district or classification,” Moran said. “Changing zoning is one of the most impactful things you can do to impact neighboring properties. People have made huge residential investments based on the current zoning. We need to take a very careful look at some of these things like artisan manufacturing and think about what they would really impose on the neighborhood.”
The plan also calls for “development standards” for artisan manufacturing that would limit hours of operation, outdoor storage, the amount of retail space allowed. The Whitefish Planning Board has recommended the corridor plan for approval and the Whitefish City Council will vote on whether to adopt it later this month, but rezoning does not occur automatically with the adoption of the plan.
Nick Kaufman of the Missoula-based WGM Group is a principal consultant on the Highway 93 West plan, and said the steering committee and the planning process were tailored to Whitefish’s singular qualities and characteristics.
“Whitefish is unique. And the corridor planning strategy that was used for this recognizes the uniqueness of Whitefish and so the planning process was uniquely designed for this corridor,” he said. “The model zoning for Area B and Idaho Timber represents change. And Whitefish is really sensitive to change. They really are. And the three things that Whitefish is desperately protective of is downtown, its tax base and the residential character of the Highway 93 corridor. So when you introduce change to those three things then you are going to get a lot of public interest.”
And while it’s improbable, Idaho Timber could spring back to life at any point, imposing a stronger industrial impact on the residential integrity of the neighborhoods than small scale, light manufacturing, said realtor and steering committee member Hunter Homes, who represents the owner of the Idaho Timber property, which is zoned for industrial use.
“The owners could put in a tire recycling plant or a pig farm if they wanted, but that is not the best use for that property. It needs to be rezoned,” Homes said. “Old timers hate to see progress. I got here in 1976 before McDonald’s opened here and when we heard McDonald’s was opening we thought Whitefish was going to go to hell in a hand basket. But it’s still a great place and it will continue to progress, and it will continue to draw more and more people here.”
“Idaho Timber is a 15-acre artist’s palette that has not been developed. There hasn’t been a picture drawn yet but whatever you can think of has the potential to go in there,” Homes continued. “There is no other property like this anywhere in Whitefish that has beautiful views of the mountains. It has 1,000 feet of river frontage. It would be a five-star op for Idaho Timber and for Whitefish.”
Kaufman said the steering committee represented a diverse cross section of Whitefish, and ultimately identified the Idaho Timber site and adjacent neighborhood as the best option to accommodate growth in Whitefish at a scale that does not infringe on the community’s downtown or residential integrity.
“I think they are learning from the past and preparing for the future,” Kaufman said. “Can you, by looking at the community and the way it is emerging, achieve a greater value in a way that allows entrepreneurs and businesses to grow and expand in a community that has a great quality of life, at a location next to a river, right next to downtown, next to a residential neighborhood, near police and emergency services and a library? I think you can.”