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20 | APRIL 1, 2015 NEW ECONOMY FLATHEADBEACON.COM
WHERE DOES WHITEFISH GROW FROM HERE?
In a town where small businesses are the heart of what drives the community, merchants struggle to find infrastructure
By TRISTAN SCOTT of the Beacon
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 busi- ness 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 con- struction of Shopko.
“It was an unfortunate thing,” said Say, who is moving Montana Olive Oil Inc. to a Kalispell loca- tion 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 na- scent brewery, he found his options were limited.
He was considering building or leasing a mar- ketplace 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 lo- cation 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 bus- tling new brewery, which re-opened last month.
Lauren Oscilowski recently applied for and re- ceived 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 loca- tion 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 out- skirts 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 fa- miliar 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 incen- tives and financial help with utility fees.
Pedestrians stroll down the west side of Central Avenue in Whitefish. BEACON FILE PHOTO
Unable to find a viable existing building for their light-manufacturing operation, city officials ad- vised 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 re- main in Whitefish despite the lack of infrastructure and support, not because of it,” Stuber said. “It be- comes a personal decision as opposed to a business decision. That being said, entrepreneurial spirit thrives on possibility, not availability. We’re inter- ested in what Whitefish can become.”
Conversely, Kalispell and Columbia Falls have a glut of available storefronts and open-space oppor- tunities in prominent locations, but attracting long- term tenants has proven problematic.
The question of what Whitefish can and will be- come has been at the fore of discussions about how to develop the Highway 93 West corridor, particu- larly 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 “cre- ative future planning” to promote economic devel- opment and entrepreneurship as the area transi- tions.
In 2007, the city’s growth policy recommended that a corridor plan be developed with specific goals and recommended actions for the area that consid- er land use, scale, transportation, landscaping, ur- ban 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 sensi- tive to new retail that might compete with down- town. 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 comple- ment to downtown,” Whitefish Planning Director David Taylor wrote in his staff report. “Ideas such as a riverfront paddle board manufacturing busi- ness with accessory sales or rentals, an adjacent microbrewery or coffee shop with second floor resi- dential 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 resi- dents who worry that any changes to the zoning will compromise the residential integrity of the area.
Anne Shaw Moran serves on the steering com- mittee and represents the owner-occupied resi- dential 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 con- cerning 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 oc- cur 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 sin- gular qualities and characteristics.
“Whitefish is unique. And the corridor plan- ning 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
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