Music school pulls back on purchase of city's building

After being unable to find a location for the building, North Valley Music School will not be purchasing the city of Whitefish’s building at Depot Park.

The school recently notified the city it would not be following through with a $20 bid it made to purchase the building. The school was required to remove the building from the park by the end of May, but says it had nowhere to move the building to.

The school had hoped to save the building from demolition and move it to the city’s snow storage lot north of the Whitefish Middle School, but the location is no longer an option, according to Terry Nelson, vice president of the school’s board of directors.

“That leaves us with no place to put it,” he said. “We hoped we could make it work, but without that location we’re not able to complete the purchase.”

The city did offer to let the school store the building on its snow lot temporarily, Nelson noted. The school had planned to spend about $60,000 to move the building to the snow lot and paying that fee twice wasn’t a viable option, he said.

“We are disappointed, but the option was still worth exploring,” he said. “We still continue to explore other options.”

City Manager Adam Hammatt said the city was willing to let the school use a portion of the snow lot.

“We asked them to come back with a plan that would also allow for affordable housing on that site, but I guess they couldn’t make it work,” he said.

Hammatt said the city feels the snow lot is an important property and at least a portion of it should be used for affordable housing.

“Affordable housing remains a priority,” he said.

The school had planned to use building to house its growing music programs. The school’s current building, a remodeled house on Spokane Avenue, provides limited space for the more than 200 students enrolled at the school.

North Valley Music School Executive Director Deidre Corson said those student numbers continue to increase and the long-term plans for the school include relocating to a new building.

“We’re starting to explode,” Corson said. “The plan in a year to five years is to have a capital plan lined up [for a new building].”

The school does have plans for a building that were drawn up in 2010, but later abandoned after the Great Recession. The plans were designed for a school building and parking lot to be constructed on the city’s snow lot.

Karl Cozsad, NVMS board president, said the music school hopes to remain downtown or near the Whitefish School District buildings when searching for a new location.

“The bulk of our students are in grades one through eight,” he said. “The larger number of students that have the opportunity for music instruction and personal growth by coming through our program is important.”

Whitefish City Council in October decided to remove the building from the park and advertised for bids on the building in hopes of saving the cost of demolishing it. They city has said it could cost $20,000 to remove the building.

North Valley Music School was the only one to submit a bid for the building.

The city acquired the Depot Park office building in 2009 from the Park Side Credit Union. It houses its Planning and Building and Parks and Recreation departments in the building, but those departments will relocated to the new City Hall when it opens this spring. Removal of the building is part of the Depot Park master plan.