The Whitefish City Council on Monday approved a proposal to build a prominent hotel at the gateway to downtown Whitefish, voting 5-0 in favor of the project but attaching a host of conditions.
Councilor John Anderson recused himself from voting.
The vote came on the heels of a lengthy public hearing and months of discussion among Whitefish Planning Board members and the hotel’s developers as they worked to craft a project that would address the concerns of nearby residents and businesses, who wondered if the scale of the building would undermine the downtown core’s character.
The site of the proposed three-story, 89-room hotel, along with 67 parking spaces, is on the corner of Second Street and Spokane Avenue, directly south of the Whitefish Middle School. It’s also adjacent to the historic Old Town Central District, a residential neighborhood where some homeowners have raised concerns about the project’s scope.
The owner behind the current project is Sean Averill, of the Whitefish Hotel Group, who along with his brother Brian and father Dan Averill owns and operates The Lodge at Whitefish Lake.
The Averills also own the site where the hotel will be built, called Block 46, and they have lined up an investor to provide financing for the project.
Averill needed approval from the planning board and the city council because the size of the project requires a conditional use permit. The proposed building’s footprint is just shy of 15,000 square feet, and the site’s zoning district requires permitting for any building footprint that exceeds 7,500 square feet.
Adding a boutique hotel to the downtown area was an element of the Whitefish downtown master plan adopted in 2006, but earlier proposals at other sites have been unsuccessful for various reasons.
One concern both planning board members and councilors raised was the possibility that the Averills would seek to franchise the hotel, a business strategy that could draw more guests hoping to capitalize on their loyalty memberships.
But the council imposed four additional conditions of approval, including a stipulation that prohibited any franchising.
Other conditions included restricting a rooftop patio from featuring a bar, music or entertainment, limiting it to a sundeck. The hotel also must maintain an employee parking area at an off-site location, and work with the Whitefish Architecture Review Committee to meet its guidelines and ensure the hotel’s design meshes with the downtown core.
Those conditions are in addition to 20 conditions recommended by the planning board, which addressed storm water drainage, parking and traffic, among other concerns.