City stays with plan to demolish Depot Park building

Whitefish City Council is sticking with long-held plans to demolish the city parks and planning building in Depot Park — at least for now.

City Council on a 4-3 vote reaffirmed the Depot Park master plan recommendation to remove the building. In the same motion, council also decided the city should entertain proposals from groups interested in leasing the space for a five-year term. The city will accept applications for the next four months, after which Council could reconsider their decision to remove the building.

Mayor John Muhlfeld broke the tie along with councilors Frank Sweeney, Jen Frandsen and Katie Williams voting in favor. Councilors Pam Barberis, Andy Feury and Richard Hildner were in opposition.

Following the July 5 discussions, Sweeney said he is left with questions about whether keeping the building might be an economic or community benefit.

“We don’t know enough to make an argument about the fiscal importance of retaining that building,” he said. “And whether that building is important to the city and community. The reality is that if the tenants have some interest in the building — and if they can come with a viable, real proposal — I would entertain that.”

Feury said if the building is kept for five years, the city should plan to hold onto it much longer because tenants won’t want to leave at the end of that term.

“You’re not making a five-year decision here,” he told Council. “You’re saying that park will have that building in it for a long time — I guarantee that.”

City Council this spring decided to re-examine an option to remove the building as set out in the city’s Depot Park master plan. Approved in 2012, the plan calls for removal of the building as part of a goal to create more green space. The planning and parks departments are set to move into the new City Hall once it’s constructed in 2017.

However, some city officials say the Depot Park building could be a source of revenue for the city, and at some point city offices may need to again occupy the space. City staff estimates a lease on the building could generate as much as $40,000 in revenue annually.

Public comment on the future of the building was split between those wanting to see it used as a visitor center and those who say the building should be torn down to increase the green space in the park.

Whitefish Mountain Resort CEO Dan Graves argued that Whitefish is surrounded by thousands of acres of forestland and the small amount of green space created by removing the building wouldn’t be worth it.

“A visitor center fits with this building right in the heart of downtown,” he said. “This park provides great green space for Tuesday Farmers Market and one weekend per month for events. We don’t need to take down a building that can function for 365 days per year.”

Three organizations have been suggested as possible occupants of the building, including the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce, the Whitefish Convention and Visitor Bureau and the Big Mountain Commercial Association.

Chamber Executive Director Kevin Gartland said the chamber is interested in the building but would likely need longer than a five-year lease to make the move because it would likely have to pay to remodel the building.

“The chamber is not here looking for a sweetheart deal,” he said. “If the chamber can negotiate a deal with the city, it could provide a centrally located tourist information center for walk-in traffic.”

Nick Polumbus, representing the WCVB, said the group isn’t likely to relocate to the city building.

“We exist to go out into the world and convince people to come here,” he said. “An information center could be a benefit, but we wouldn’t want to take resources away from our core mission to do that.”

Ashley Myett, with the Whitefish Gift and Gear shop on Central Avenue, said she often talks with customers who can’t find the chamber at their current location on Spokane Avenue.

“A visitor center would be ideal for us,” she said. “It’s a good building — there’s no reason to tear it down.”

Rhonda Fitzgerald, who serves on the state Tourism Advisory Council, said the state is moving away from funding visitor centers.

“The walk-up visitor center is a declining concept,” she said. “Most people are looking online or using 24-hour kiosks, not stopping at visitor centers Monday through Friday from 9-5. Visitor centers are not the wave of the future.”

Landscape architect Bruce Boody, who served on the Depot Park master plan committee, said the master plan was a decade-long decision that should be upheld.

“We need to re-affirm how important that park is to downtown businesses,” he said. “We need to take the long view like the planning has for 12 years and keep the park as open space.”

Former councilor Turner Askew disagreed, noting that the city’s downtown master plan contained several ideas that never came to fruition. In 2012, Council scraped plans from the 2005 master plan that called for channeling water from the Whitefish River toward downtown to create the Whitefish Landing Resort.

“There was a lot of interesting ideas and we decided that maybe that was not what we wanted to do,” Askew said. “Just because we decided all those years ago to tear it down, doesn’t mean things haven’t changed since then.”

Council asked for the original steering committee that created the master plan and the Park Board to reconsider that portion of the plan. The Park Board recommended postponing demolition of the building and to put it up for lease for up to five years to a civic nonprofit at market rates.

Muhlfeld noted that elements of the Depot Park and downtown master plan have changed over the years, but that doesn’t mean that the plans don’t remain intact.

“We began looking at this when there were budget issues dealing with the City Hall and parking structure project,” he said. “If we retain the building for a period of time it could be a revenue stream for the city — even if that’s for five years, that’s significant.”

Council split on an earlier motion that called for the building to be demolished. Muhlfeld broke the tie causing the motion to fail.

Frandsen said she needed more information about the condition of the building and possible lease options from interested groups.

“There’s been a lot of effort put into information about removing the building,” she said. “I feel uncomfortable making decisions without some of those facts [involving retaining the building].”