Ideas shared on future of Idaho Timber site

Maintaining industrial use at the Idaho Timber property while retaining a railroad spur on site seemed to be a priority for those who attended a brainstorming session last week on the future of the dormant lumber mill.

The 10-acre site off Karrow Avenue near the Whitefish River was used by Idaho Timber until the plant closed in June 2009 due to the recession.

Members of the city steering committee creating a Highway 93 West Corridor Land Use Plan hosted the evening to get input from the public. Zoning on the site will remain as industrial, but the corridor plan will determine what other uses are appropriate.

“We want ideas for potential use of the Idaho Timber site,” said committee member Bruce Lutz. “We’re looking for general land uses.”

Attendees were asked to break into small groups and draw on maps their ideas for what the site could look like in the future.

Each group had varying ideas, but almost all wanted to retain at least a portion of the site for industrial or light industrial uses. Some pointed to the railroad spur that enters the northwest corner of the property as valuable.

Several groups suggested retaining the portion of the property located along the Whitefish River for conservation or recreation, and included the possibility of constructing a bike path along the river. It was suggested a bike path could connect to Second Street, the Great Northern Veterans Peace Park, and by bridge across the river to the current trail system.

One idea for the property was to include mixed-use development along the north and east portions of the site, but set back from the river. Suggestions for that type of development include condominiums with the possibility for restaurants or art boutiques.

Representatives from Idaho Timber participated in the session.

Dave Taugher, vice president of human resources and general counsel for Idaho Timber, spoke to the group following the session saying some of the ideas presented were great.

“We have always thought fondly of Whitefish,” he said. “We were hoping to have enough business to support opening again, but the housing market has been down for some years and we’re not seeing indicators that it will rise to a level again that we would be reopening.”

One building remains on the site where Idaho Timber produced high-quality boards. Raw lumber was sorted, trimmed and cut to lengths of 4 to 12 feet.

Holding company Leucadia National Corp. is the parent company of Idaho Timber. Leucadia owns interests in plastics manufacturing, telecommunications, property management, gaming entertainment, real estate, medical product development and several wineries.

Following the brainstorming session, Whitefish-based Innovative Timber Systems gave its pitch for opening a manufacturing plant on the site. The company would like to use the plant for production and shipment of cross-laminated wood panels.

“This is a great location for us to establish our business,” Peter McCrone with Innovative Timber said. “We have looked high and low in the valley and there’s nothing similar to this.”

Innovative Timber Systems uses prefabricated wooden panels that are laser cut to specific dimensions and then pieced together on the building site. The company constructed the Sawbuck Do Jang downtown in 2011. The company shipped the building panels from its plant in Austria, but is hoping to begin manufacturing in Whitefish.

McCrone said if the company was able to open on the site it expects to process 6 million board feet of timber per year out of the facility. That’s equivalent to about 127 houses, he noted.

“We’ll have high quality jobs,” he said. “We expect to have between 25 to 30 jobs on site.”