City Hall should be saved

People move to Whitefish for the quality of life, and a large attraction of Whitefish is the historic downtown. But we are destroying old buildings and putting up new ones at an alarming pace.

We now have a 1915 City Hall building — under a newer 1950s facade — that is going to be demolished. I believe that if this building can be saved, it should be saved.

One option would be to remodel only the original building, and then have a large parking lot behind it. This would help solve the downtown parking problem and not require the expense of an obtrusive parking structure.

As far as I know, saving the original City Hall building was never one of the options considered by the City Council.

Perhaps a museum could be put in the building to enhance the downtown. The Stump Town museum could be moved from its cramped location in the train station. This museum is visited by many tourists who visit Whitefish. An alternative location for a new City Hall building could be found. It doesn’t have to be at its current location.

Saving this historic building would be crucial to saving the historic quality of downtown Whitefish.

There will most likely be a boutique hotel located on Spokane and Second Street. All these newer buildings will destroy the historic quality of downtown.

In Chicago where I used to live, they are renovating old factories and converting them to loft condos because old brick buildings are truly beautiful — even if they are not overly ornate buildings.

With Whitefish having a ski mountain and large lake, and Glacier Park only 25 miles away, it is a very desirable place for small start-up companies to locate. We should spend some resources trying to attract companies to relocate here and also ensure that we have a desirable downtown.

Let’s keep the downtown historic, and have a balanced approach to development.

— Chris Bernat