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06/09/02 Missoulian/Malled to Deathkw, � ti. ,: �;::�: .i " s r..:: a�• rsry �.s. : vs € V t w , 1rwf is'Mo a°:. "r §h '*.u'�...r't `.a;ir�� it dsr v u ..k " s .y r tt= 6Y '�. sr., € ,�, €v,.u, v ,t J :.,,, nW .a -.•:a 6. kr.... .bur,.. S.,r+ wr r, o.,a :,}v: ,:.. b k� w..:wn..v.. i r a :�":,. v.,. ,. w .: i : ti �, � ,.. � we d a I:br.. � •..v, 6 t ..�M,,. r k u . r.. :.. a .�t ', `Our sense of community, our sense oj' who we are, comes from our sense of past. ff our downtown core dies, we have no past. We become a suburb of no place.' — Bill Goodman, Kalispell Realtor Kalispell Realtor Bill Goodman worries that the proposed Glacier Mall, a super -mall envisioned for the northeast edge of town, will erode the character of the city's historic downtown area. Developer claims that a proposal to build a `super -mall' near downtown Kalispell is simply progress; others argue a town's very identity and future are at stake By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian ALISPELL — Bill Goodman steps outside his office in downtown Kalispell, looks beyond the block -long historic building lie owns there, and Squints into an uncertain tomorrow. He's not so sure lie lilies what he sees. "it doesn't look good," lie says, "not good at all." And if you put your ear to the sidewalk, he says, you can even hear what's coming. "Oh, you can hear it all right," Goodman says. "It's a big sucking noise, and it's getting louder." The vacuum creating that sucking sound, Goodman said, is out-of-state money used to build "super -malls" and other commercial development well beyond the reach of the historic downtown. And what's being sucked out, according to Goodman, is not just the mom-and-pop retailers that have carved a Main Street niche for themselves; it is -his town's identity, its character and its potential for the future. "I think that our sense of community, our sense of who we are, comes from our sense of past," he said from his office in the century -old KM Building. "If our downtown core dies, we have no past. We become a suburb of no place." Actually, Goodman's primary fear is that Kalispell's downtown, including his renovated historic building at its heart, will become a suburb not of "no place" but of Glacier Mall. The mall, although still just a proposal, is well on its way to becoming reality; 250 acres of retail reality, including the largest mall in Montana surrounded by "big box" retailers surrounded by offices and banks surrounded by high- deRsity residential. It is the vision of Tennessee -based developer Bucky Wolford, and when complete will radically transform what is now a farmer's field on Kalispell's northeastern fringe. There are many unanswered questions regarding the futyre of the mall — questions about groundwater and police services and fire services and roads and traffic and schools and existing neighbors — but running like a subcurrent beneath all those See MALLED, Page A6 Index Astrology .....E5 Cold, breezy At Home' Business .....D1 Coffee with a kick: Americans staying up late for 1 By EDDIE PELLS almost anything to watch the World Cup. States. Everyone knows American Associated Press The Philadelphian counts himself sports fans love a winner, but now, the. FROM PAGE Al Malled Continued conversations is a less easily defined question, Goodman says, "about who we are." The question isn't so easy to ask, let alone answer. It hinges on slippery ideas about what we value, what we are willing to pay to retain those values, and what we stand to gain, or lose, as new kinds of development replace the old. "No one person can answer those questions," Goodman said, "especially no one person from Tennessee. We will have to confront these questions as a community." Bernice Linton's community knows well the impact of a Wolford mall — or any mall, for that matter — on existing business. Linton lives in Hattiesburg, Miss., where Wolford opened the doors on the Turtle Creek mall back in 1995. Wolford offered the Hattiesburg project as an example when making his Glacier Mall pitch to Kalispell city planners last month, saying the two towns had much in common. Goodman, for one, hopes the similarities will prove few and far between. "When the Turtle Creek mall came in ... the first thing that happened was that our existing mall died," Linton wrote in a May 30 letter to Goodman. Linton is executive director of the Hattiesburg Downtown Association. The existing Hattiesburg mall, she wrote, "stayed totally dark for a good five years and then spent the next years slowly filling with large discounters and some telemarketing." That scenario is not surprising t6 Goodman, who watched a similar situation play itself out in his town. When Kalispell Center Mall was built in the midst of downtown, he said, the existing Gateway West Mall all but died. Located on the western fringe of town, Gateway West stumbled along in a sort of retail limbo for years, its many dark windows like so many missing teeth. Now, it is home to discounters and telemarketing, he said, as is the old Hattiesburg inall. His big worry now, however, is what will happen to Kalispell Center Mall once Glacier Mall is built. An empty hulk in the middle of downtown will be much worse for business than the empty mall on the city's outskirts, he said. "The new mall," Linton wrote from Hattiesburg, "was built eight miles away from our downtown. Downtown already had vacancies when Turtle Creek came in, but they increased dramatically." Downtown held on to some banks and offices, she said, as well as government offices, but most everything else moved out. She closes her letter, "1 hope this information will help you make a more knowledgeable decision." "So do I," says Goodman. Wolford, from day one, has been up front about his proposal's likely effect on Kalispell Center Mall. "We're going to hurt it," he said in a phone interview Friday, "there's no doubt about it." He likely will rob the downtown mall of its two anchor tenants, lie said, and that will be a tough blow. "I hate to use the word `kill,' he said, "but I will cause the demise of that project. It will MICHAEL GALLACHER/Mlssoullan It is Chris Kukulski's job as Kalispell's city manager to anticipate the impacts to downtown businesses if Glacier Mall becomes a reality. have to be redeveloped in some form or fashion." Enter Chris Kukulski, city manager of Kalispell and a man who has given much thought to what could soon be a black hole not just in his downtown but also in his tax rolls. Kukulski is not necessarily a fan of the proposed Glacier Mall, and not necessarily a foe. He is a realist, he says, who has learned from the past. When the city tried to take a hard line with Wal-Mart and Costco, for instance, those businesses just built out of the city — where there were no sewer lines and, more importantly, no city taxes. "I have to keep saying to myself, `Remember, Chris; if you go too far, they'll just build the thing without you.' " And if a new mall is coming, he said, the city would just as soon tax it. Owners of the existing mall have been dragging their feet on a proposed expansion, he said, even as Wolford, a proven developer, has been steaming ahead. The city can stand by only so long, he said, before it gets on board. Kukulski already is in contact with the owners of the Kalispell Center Mall, and hopes it could be revamped into a large convention center that would create an even greater draw for existing downtown businesses. The trick, he said, will be to use city resources when possible to keep downtown vital, to keep business growing there, to dress it up and make it a destination, even as the city negotiates the details of a mall he says will undoubtedly have an impact on that very downtown. Already, the city is pumping ptiblic dollars into a downtown revitalization project called "streetscape," which will be all the more important when Wolford's mall is opened, he said. "People are shopping at Home Depot instead of the downtown hardware store," Kukulski said. "That's reality. If that's going to happen, we're going to have to offer something else downtown than hardware stores." The Hattiesburg scenario is not all that surprising, he said, given the fact that there are a limited number of shoppers, most of whom are looking for the cheapest deal. "Sure, it worries me," he said, "because I suspect the Hattiesburg experience is not unique at all. I'm not going to kid myself and say our downtown is not going to be negatively impacted. The question is, what do we need to do to help downtown evolve into a destination of its own?" The answer, according to Joel Schoknect, is parking. "Every time we get ideas about growing as a downtown, the parking problem rears its ugly head and new merchants just run for the outskirts," said Schoknect, who owns two buildings downtown. You can't have residential apartments without parking, he said, and you can't have busy streets without the apartments. You can't have strong sales without busy streets, he said, and you can't have happy retailers without strong sales. And so in the end, Schoknect figures, you can't have happy retailers without parking. The problem with current growth models in and around Kalispell, he said, is that "everyone with deep pockets gets what they want." New businesses get incentives to build on the city's fringe, he said, while existing local businesses get taxed. "We need to put things in scale here," he said. "Wolford's development will cover, what, about 250 acres? The entire downtown is just 66 acres. Ideally, I would like it if it never was built; but that's not the picture here. So I guess I would ask that they scale it back. "Maybe it's just a lack of vision on my part, but I just can't imagine this place as some kind of north Phoenix, with all these people buzzing around like bees and making the businesses go." Nor can Goodman, who is less concerned about losing retail from downtown than he is about losing office space. "Today's downtown is about office space," he said. "If we lose that, we're dead." Wolford's proposal would allow the developer to put in far more office space than currently exists in downtown, Goodman said, "so he has the expansion market. We lose that niche, and that's the death of downtown." Both Kukulski and Goodman are banking on a' proposed "business improvement district" as one tool to keep downtown alive, using special tax money to market the downtown and fill the vacancies that both agree are inevitable in the face of Glacier Mall. They also point to downtown projects such as a new performing arts center as magnets that should help downtown remain a place to be. But no one expects the mall and the downtown to get along as friendly neighbors. "There is absolutely no doubt that it's going to be cannibalizing the market that already exists," Goodman said of the new mall. "These are not brand-new people' shopping; it's the same old people going somewhere else. So what then? Buildings go dark." Buildings go dark, Bernice Linton agreed, just like they did in Hattiesburg, Miss. 7-111-1 1 -if nr 4 1 D —r nl-I Ln M . I. -, 7 -* �_% nnn �► � "My suggestion," she said in a telephone interview from her office at the downtown association, "would be that you not wait as long as we did to deal with the vacated buildings you're going to get." Hattiesburg's downtown, she said, fell derelict in the years after Wolford's mall opened (it was on the decline even before Turtle Creek opened) and now any redevelopment must be preceded by expensive infrastructure repairs. Kalispell, she said, likely cannot afford such repairs. And Hattiesburg, despite Wolford's comparisons, might actually have been in a better financial position to absorb a "super mall" than is Kalispell. Hattiesburg, unlike Kalispell, is home to 19,000 college students. It is an hour from Jackson, Miss., a couple of hours from New Orleans. It is a manufacturing center where wages average more than $25,000 a year compared to about $19,000 in the Kalispell area. In addition, Hattiesburg's cost of living is about 8 percent below the national average. Kalispell's is a couple of percent above that average. A house in Hattiesburg that starts at about $70,000 might cost $100,000 in Kalispell. According to Kim Richardson at the Hattiesburg Area Development Partnership, the greater Hattiesburg area is a center for more than 250,000 people. Kalispell is a center for perhaps 100,000. Hattiesburg is home to 750 hospital beds; Kalispell, about 185. Wolford, however, points out that Kalispell and the Flathead Valley pull in somewhere around 2 million tourists each year, and each of those out-of-towners is a potential shopper. The trade-off is that a sizable portion of the local residents leave for several winter months. According to Wolford, however, the total retail sales in Hattiesburg and Kalispell are "nearly identical, within a few thousand dollars of each other." And if Kalispell is no Hattiesburg, neither is it an Ames, Iowa, exactly. "Right now, I think it's pretty much up in the air whether Ames will be home to a Wolford mall," said Mark Reinig, economic development coordinator for that Midwestern city. Ames is in the midst of a community conversation not unlike the debate going on in Kalispell, and is about a year behind Kalispell in deciding whether to grant Wolford special See MALLED, PageA7 0/C SKr • On -site document shrec staples & paper clips, n • Locally owned & operat Call Greg Terry for compe cell (406) 370-6070 phone/ Intense pulsed light treatment for: rosacea acne scarring fine wrinides age/sun spots facial & leg spider veins tattoos Now a non-invasive approach with minimum downtime Robert Korenberg, M.D'— Board-Certified Dermatologist S43-8S 12 Stephen Hardy, MX Board -Certified Plastic Surgeon 728-381 1 Counter Surprisingly affordable, gl become one of the most l for kitchen counter tops vanities. We have 55 color marble and limestone on today and select your favc FROM PAGE A6 ;.J li IN a Mailed Continued from Page A6 the old mall emptied." The problem with the future Goodman sees when he peers down Main Street in Kalispell, he 'd h ld ' k 1 zoning changes to make a mall there a reality. sar , rs t at rt wou n t to e ong to empty his street out, either. One thing, however, is certain A deal too good to be true, he said, usually is. in Ames. "We already have a mall," When you buy a cheap Reinig said. "If Mr. Wolford product, he said, it was made cheap by cheap.manufacturing. builds a new one, one is not going to 'survive. The existing mall will . Cheap manufacturing often die." means foreign manufacturing. ;Arnes, a university town, already has a strong downtown, When domestic manufacturing jobs are lost in the race to the Reinig said, and so the concern is bottom, he said, the tax burden is shifted from manufacturing to not so much for the local niche rket. Rather, he said, North residents. And when a single Grand Mall will become an retailer replaces several retailers, he said, the tax burden is again empty shell, and the city will have shifted from business to to work with the mall owner to residents. find a new use for the building. "'We haven't even decided Buying cheap, lie said, is a whether to grant the planning short-term savings that ultimately cli�ange," Reinig said, "and we're catches up with taxpayers looking to improve the economic base of already looking at redevelopment their communities. But as possibilities for the old mall." But not everyone is so sure shoppers are hit harder by the tax Arises will ultimately welcome man, and so have less money in their,pockets, he said, the W?lford. A new civic group has incentive is even greater to add to formed to oppose changing the city's Land Use Policy Plan to the woes by once again buying allow Wolford's mall construction cheap. "It's a downward spiral," he Well beyond.existing shopping said and residential development. Kurt Carlson is especially keen Which gets back to that !?},t!;tuiding out how this slippery question about what we co>?>munity discussion will end; value and what we're prepared to Carlson is general manager of the spend to retain those values. North Grand Mall, and admits "The businesses that move his30-year-old shopping center is doomed if the new mall is built. into Glacier Mall will not be local 'The city of Ames, he said, just businesses," Goodman said. "They will bring in management pumped $3 million into a face-lift from somewhere else send their' foi--downtown, and "they haven't profits somewhere else, have reaped the rewards of that their printing done somewhere i-nVaesUnent yet. Why would we else. Instyprints will lose three undermine all that work and good business customers so money for something like this?" they'll get rid of two employees. fle would like to expand his That's the way it works." existing mall, but like Kalispell But Wolford sees a different Center Mall his center is lan"chocked. future, and argues that tax coffers s,E'We're worried about have been filled not drained, by every single one of his abandonment of buildings," he commercial developments. said. "We're worried about local Kalispell is fortunate to have a business. We're worried about fairly vibrant downtown already, allowing a developer to steer he said, with restaurants and commercial and residential shops and specialty markets that growth into an area that is now are not the standard fare of industrial. He's building this malls. totally away from the rooftops, By pulling people into town to which means everyone will have shop at the mall, he said, he to drive." might actually help downtown by ` "And all those worries, he said, steering sonic shoppers that way ark alive and well in a town with — the "bleed -off effect." anwdverage income about 2 1/2 "They're not mall -type tmies that of Kalispell's. tenants," in downtown Kalispell, he said. "Uthink those people will "Unless you live in a rich still do well," town where people can afford to But whether tax coffers will do .` shop their conscience, then Wal- ' well depends'upon your outlook. Marts are the death of "Yes, they're paying a tax bill' everybody." like everyone else," the city's So says Annette Price. She Kukulski said."But it doesn't and her husband operate the always equate to an economy of Randy Price and Co. clothing scale where you get more from store in the Wolford-built Turtle less. 1 think it would be very Creek mall. Prior to moving in there, the farnily-run stores in H4ttiesbu rg'sold mall, which dust emptied out overnight, she ' Some moved to the new mall. Beautyrest Others moved to strip malls, "outdoor" rO r T e s s j j� Id which she calls malls. ,;A few — a kids' clothing store, a 4porting goods store — simply "Direddisappeared. "!,This is a good plane to us," she said of the new mall. "But ou couldn't believe how quickly Y r, t„, short-sighted to believe that this sort of growth doesn't cost the taxpayers money. The bottom line is, it increasingly places demands on the number of police and ambulance calls, the use of our parks, the sewage treatment plant, the schools:" "But in the long-term," he added, "the community is growing and we're going to have to grow with it." And while Kukulski would not predict the City Council's final reaction to Wolford's proposal, he did say that "I think they're inclined to embrace the growth The MissoA Y D �d that we're having with the hope; the belief; that thgy can then steer it." Goodman, for one, does not share in that belief. "I'm tired of the developer being in charge of planning," he said, "of big money steering the ship. I haven't figured out yet how to fight that, but I am very much going to fight this battle; "I'm fighting for mydife down here." Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at miamison @missou liam com. Ce Music & enitertalnme:nt for the who6e tam,ily TastoMissoula Over 20 food vendors Sunday June 16�, 20102 a Caras Dark * Noon -,a P 1 Admission and Only 1- per "Paste" Thank Y< • Missoula County vo, of confidence • Members of the Ms. Department, l —1 si the dedicatior id while three of your for the position of Everyone who so ge spiritual and finant the. election campa Mike McMeel Sheriff/Coroner-e Mike A provei)le; wide disdi la `orce SHERIFF C. mis—ule cowrty Paid for by Mike McMeekin for Sheriff/Coroner, Dernocra4 Dusty Desc wups, Treasurer, 246 SL Johns Drive, wio, wr59847 what dad realty wants...