Design unveiled for new Muldown school building

The Whitefish School Board gave a unanimous thumbs-up last week to the exterior design of the future Muldown Elementary School.

Dow Powell, owner’s representative for the project, presented the design to the board during their June business meeting.

The new school’s exterior mixes colors like green, gray and a wood grain pattern among a variety of materials all around the school. At the entrance, a tall set of glass windows looks into the school with a slanted, overhanging roof. In front of the entrance is a larger planter with trees and flowers that also helps to create a commons area where students can wait to be picked up and dropped off.

Voters last October passed a $26.5 million levy to build the new school.

The use of multiple materials like stone, metal and fiber cement siding helps give the building a unique look while blending it better into the surrounding area, Powell told the board.

“So we have quite a few different textures and a lot of that was to have the building fit better with the residential areas that we have around there and give it a different feel all the way around,” he said

Trustee Katie Clarke asked if the design is intended to match the look of Whitefish High School, which sits directly north of the where the future Muldown is planned to be constructed on Pine Avenue.

“It doesn’t look like the high school,” Powell answered. “I really think we’re trying to just do our own thing. Muldown is its own school, the high school is its own school. We’re not trying to make a bunch of train depots.”

Clarke, speaking on behalf of absent Trustee Betsy Kohnstamm, also asked if the school would achieve any building certifications, like the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for more sustainable building.

Powell said they’re setting out to hit LEED silver certifications, but would not be undergoing the full documentation project to get the actual certification. By hitting those goals but not going through the actual certification, Powell said the project will save about $250,000.

Superintendent Heather Davis Schmidt noted Tim Peterson, lead architect for L’Heureux, Peterson and Warner — the firm contracted by the district for Muldown — is LEED certified and will hit LEED goals throughout the design and building process.

“He is going to create a checklist for us in advance of the actual building process that will then be checked off along the way, so we do have our own level of accountability to those standards,” she said.

Next for the Muldown building plan is a gaining approval of the city’s architectural review committee. The school will also go before the Whitefish Planning Board on Thursday to request a conditional use permit to build the school in the WR-1, one-family residential district.

The CUP request is set to go before City Council on July 2.

Powell said if all goes well, the project should start breaking ground in the fall.

“We’re hoping to get some site work going this summer. The engineers are being pushed pretty hard, so we’ll see how that all shakes out, but I feel very positive that we will for sure be starting some type of construction by fall — if not sooner.”