Celebrating the past, looking ahead to the future

Nelson’s Ace Hardware celebrated 70 years in business last week, while also breaking ground on a new building that the store’s owners intend to bring the business into the future.

Owners Rick and Marilyn Nelson, along with their daughter, Mariah Joos, began more than a year ago planning for the longterm of the business and now they’re excited to begin construction of a new building at the corner of U.S. Highway 93 and Commerce Street.

“It’s joyful,” says Rick simply, noting that the hardware store has been crowded in its Central Avenue location for some time preventing it from best serving its customers.

“The longevity of our business has been our customer base that has kept us open,” adds Marilyn. “It’s gratifying to have a place in society where you know you’re looking to the third generation of ownership and looking to hit a milestone of 100 years in business.”

Demolition work has already begun on the former Army-Navy building at the site that will be home to the new hardware store, and construction work is planned to begin later this month. The new store is set to be a 13,500-square-feet red barn-inspired design including weather vanes and cupolas. An additional 3,000-square-foot garden center is also part of the project, along with a parking lot, bike racks and landscaping.

Early in the design process Rick came up with the barn-style design, wanting to give the building “authenticity” to fit in with the community as if it’s been here for years.

Mariah Joos, who manages the day-to-day of the business is part of the third generation to operate Nelson’s Hardware and says she’s excited about what the new building will offer to their customers.

“I love the amount of windows and natural light — in retail you just don’t see that,” she said. “We will have room to show people what we offer instead of showing them a picture or ripping open a box to show them. We will be able to display the depth of our products.”

Marilyn is enthusiastic about the opportunity of the garden center along with the new building’s landscaping.

“I’m a huge lover of flowers,” she said. “I’m excited to have window boxes with flowers for the building, and to be able to offer live plants.”

Construction of the new building is expected to be completed in late winter of 2019, and landscaping will follow in the summer.

Wayne Saurey, of Saurey Custom Builders, is the general contractor on the project.

Saurey said the exciting piece of the demolition process that began last week has been discovering that pieces of the former Army-Navy building can be recycled. The Nelsons closed on the property last week and demo work began less than a day later.

“We’re expecting to be able to recycle or reuse about 80 to 90 percent of the building,” he said. “The metal roof is going to three different people and the wood underneath will be reused as a privacy fence. Some of the asphalt and concrete will be crushed up and reused on site. We won’t be filling up the landfill.”

In addition, Saurey noted the new building will be constructed with materials designed to make it energy efficient. He said though double in the size as the current Nelson’s, it should cost about the same to heat.

The city of Whitefish this spring approved spending $100,000 in tax increment finance funds toward the future store site to clean up blight. In exchange for the funds, which will be used for site preparation and landscaping, Nelson’s provided right-of-way to the city on 18th Street and Commerce Street.

Marilyn thanked the city for its assistance throughout the planning process for the new building. She also noted that during the project they are planning to utilize as many local contractors and business as possible.

The Nelsons have worked with Montana Creative and Bruce Boody Landscape on the design plans.

“We’re doing our best to keep everything local,” Rick said.

Rick’s parents, Wilfred and Ruth Nelson, purchased Marshall Wells Hardware when they moved to Whitefish in 1947. Rick’s brother the late Don Nelson was partner in the store until he retired in 2005.

The Nelson family will retain ownership of the building on Central Avenue and say they expect to select a tenant for the space that is an asset to downtown.

The Nelsons note that when the new building is complete the goal is to close downtown and re-open as quickly as possible in the new location.

“We don’t want to impact our customers too much by being closed,” Marilyn said.