Project manager appointed for new high school

The Whitefish School District board of trustees has chosen a company to serve as project manager for construction of a new high school here.

The project is likely to be several years away from breaking ground, especially in light of current economic conditions, but Steeplechase Development Advisors was unanimously chosen for the position during a special board meeting on Oct. 2.

Steeplechase was one of 23 companies that applied for the position and was chosen ahead of time by the school district's facilities committee. The committee includes trustees, school staff and community stakeholders.

Steeplechase has offices in both Whitefish and Carbondale, Colo. Two of the company's three partners live in Whitefish — Bayard Dominick and Christopher Kelsey. The company has worked on projects in resort communities that include Aspen, Carbondale and Winter Park, Colo., and Whitefish.

Dominick has an MBA from Stanford University and has worked as a development manager for 13 years. He worked on the Morning Eagle condominium on Big Mountain for Hines Hotels and the Slopeside at Big Mountain duplexes next to Chair 6 for Aspen developer Bob Bowden. He was an equity partner and managing member of the Old Town subdivision north of State Park Road.

Dominick also worked for Bowden on the Boardwalk At Whitefish project when it initially called for building 161 units on an area now preserved as the Viking Creek wetlands. More recently, he worked for Bill Foley's Rock Creek Cattle Company, which is developing a high-end subdivision on 80,000 acres in the Flint Range above the state prison in Deerlodge.

Kelsey has a master's in architecture from the University of California-Berkeley. He worked as a development, marketing and sales vice president for Suncadia on a $1 billion-plus 3,500-unit mixed-use resort project near Roslyn, Wash. — home of the TV show Northern Exposure — and as a project manager for a $200 million 685-unit residential community in Carbondale, Colo.

Dominick and Kelsey said they applied for the Whitefish job because they wanted to lend their experience to the school system where their children will one day attend.

"It's certainly new for us in terms of expertise," Dominick said. "The ultimate goal is to have a school that is unique to Whitefish, complementary to Whitefish as a community, as well as to give students an amazing platform going forward, so they feel that they're as prepared as the rest of the world."

School superintendent Jerry House said Dominick and Kelsey "have the business savvy of involving people, stakeholders and outside agencies." He said that collaborative effort will be crucial to any high school building project's success.

"We're taking a different approach than we've had before," House said. "We're using their world of expertise."

Whitefish voters turned down the last two bond elections for a new high school. In 2003, voters approved a $10.2 million bond issue for a new middle school where Central School once stood, but they turned down a $10.4 million bond issue for a high school.

Voters also turned down a $21.5 million high school bond issue in March 2008. The plan called for 164,000 square feet of new construction and remodeling, with 20 new classrooms, a food court and cafeteria, and an expanded library.

The current proposal for a new high school comes at a time when a credit crisis, recession and new property reappraisals have increased property owners' concerns about additional taxes.

It also comes at a time of falling school enrollment for the past decade. Fall enrollment in the district as a whole has declined by 14.2 percent from 1999 through 2009, while fall enrollment in the high school alone has declined by 24.1 percent.

High school enrollment is also falling at Columbia Falls and Bigfork, but it has been growing in Kalispell. Some locals say the new Glacier High School facility in Kalispell is drawing Whitefish students away.