11/04/01 DI/No Man's Land'No 7 1 d
Mall gkeeps property lannin dis ute in limbo
p p
Landowners call approval process for Glacier Mall `frustrating'
would- be�developed .someday.
since it took center stage in James
what they wanted to do with it,"
B WILLIAM L. SPENCE
Y
Someday didn't turn out as
"Bucky" Wolford's plans to build a
Another wanted to buy and devel-
The Daily Inter Lake
expected, though. John Jump died,
750,000-square-foot regional mall.
op the property piece by piece,
Darlene remarried, and the farm
. Wolford has optioned several prop-
rather than pay for the entire 80
When John and Darlene Jump
today is a kind of no man's land,
erties in the area northeast of the
acres at one time.
bought the property in 1994,: they
naught in the planning dispute that
Reserve/LaSalle intersection - more
But from the beginning, Wolford
did it with an eye to the future,
surrounds the biggest retail propos-
than 200 acres total, he said — but the
was different. During their initial
looking to build a nest egg for their
al in Flathead County's history.
Jump property, with its highway
meetings in 1999, he made it clear he
retirement.
"This is all very frustrating," said
frontage and unobstructed views, is
wanted to build a regional mall. He
The property, an old farm, was
Darlene, now Darlene Jump Rauthe.
the key piece in the mall puzzle.
talked about the type of tenants he
located near the intersection of East
"The most frustrating thing has
Other developers have expressed
would bring in, and why he thought
Reserve Drive and LaSalle Road. It
been that so many people have so
interest in the property, as well,
this was the right place to build the
was a good spot, with plenty of
much to say about what we do with
Almost from the day the Jumps
largest shopping center in Montana.
frontage along the highway and, at
our land."
acquired it, offers have been made.
"He was so up front about every-
80 acres, plenty of room to support a
Opinions about that particular
"The fast was from a company in
thing," Rauthe said. "He was able to
large project.
piece of farmland have sprouted like
Salt Lake City," Rauthe said. "But
There seemed little doubt that it
weeds over the past two years, ever
they absolutely refused to tell us
See LAND on Page A3
generated
Sewer extension
years ago this month sold Wol- Evergreen, the quality of
look you in the eye. I think
that was important. You could
believe him."
"We haven't caught him in
anything," said Carl Rauthe,
Darlene's second husband.
"He's taken suggestions.
That's what we like about him.
He's trying to get along."
However, Wolford's efforts
to get along haven't gotten him
very far, at least where
Kalispell is concerned.
He's spent two years trying
to convince the city to grant
him access to sewer service,
either directly or indirectly
via the Evergreen Sewer Dis-
trict (he's said he'll pay to
extend the lines), and the City
Council still needs to act on
his recent request for a master,
plan amendment that would
allow the project to proceed.
"I knew it would be difficult,
but I didn't expect it to take this
long," said Rauthe, who two
or e irs o sever options
to buy her property. "I didn't
anticipate that the city would
have so much say. It irritates
me to no end that they're so
involved, but we can't vote on
anything they do."
As she spoke, Rauthe was sit-
ting in her immaculate home
about two miles from the pro-
posed mall site. She's lived there
since 1967, watching. as Ever-
green developed around her.
That growth, particularly
along the LaSalle commercial
strip, is one of the primary rea-
sons for Kalispell's cautious
approach to Wolford's proposal.
In fact, the city has only to
look at a decision made 10
years ago — to allocate sewer
treatment capacity to Ever-
green — for a case lesson as to
why the mall should be han-
dled so carefully, according to
Tom Jentz, director of the Tri-
City Planning Office.
"By bringing sewer out to
UV e opment unproved dra-
matically and intensified,"
Jentz said. "New uses pushed
out towards the airport, and a.
substantial amount of busi-
ness moved out of Kalispell. It
allowed Evergreen to become
the commercial focus."
The decision was made with
the best intentions, Jentz
explained. Water quality was a
major problem in the area, and
extending public sewer was
the best solution.
However, there was "an
urgency to the approval," he
said, in part because the feder-
al programs needed to pay for
the infrastructure were disap-
pearing.
Consequently, "for the sake
of an environmental problem
that needed to be taken care of,
we didn't fully address all the
issues," Jentz said. "The rea-
son I say that is because 10
years later we're still dealing
with those issues."
Evergreen's development
Wolford's mall presents the
same concerns about economic
flight and tax -base erosion.
Even if the site were annexed
— something Wolford has said
he favors — extending sewer to
the area would help create the dominant commercial center,
not just in Kalispell, but in
northwest Montana.
"Every business will want to
be near the mall," Jentz said.
"It won't be 100 percent growth
— there will be a lot of shifting
from other areas. The trick is
to fill in those vacancies; if you
can't, your tax base erodes.
"To say this proposal should
be dealt with in 60 days isn't
realistic," he said. "Once the
decision is made, we're going
to live with it, so the idea is to
do it well."
But until the decision is
made, it's the Rauthes — and
Wolford, and local consumers
— who have to live with it.
And therein lies the dilem-
ma, according to Greg Stevens,
president of the Kalispell City -
County Planning Board, which
in August recommended
approval of Wolford's master
plan amendment.
"I'm real nervous about the
idea of a municipal govern-
ment manipulating the free
enterprise system in favor of
one interest or another — such
as downtown businesses,"
Stevens said. "It puts them (the
Kalispell City Council) in the
position of deciding the eco-
nomic future of the valley, and
I'm not sure they're qualified.
"I understand that freedom
has some sharp edges," he said.
"Maybe someone does some-
thing stupid with their proper-
ty. Maybe they sell it to a busi-
ness that makes it tougher for
(existing) businesses. But if
you try to take away those
sharp edges, you run into a
whole new set of problems that
aren't as visible — there are
some real blunt hammer blows
when you turn everything over
to a central planning office.
"A lot of us old-timers ...
have an affection for a person's
right to do what they think
best for their family," said
Stevens, who's lived in the
Flathead since 1949. "If each
person is free to decide their
own welfare, then the overall
general welfare is better off."
Sitting in their dining room,
it's hard for the Rauthes to
understand how such funda-
mental disputes between per-
sonal freedoms and the public
good can be resolved by an 80-
acre field of dill. After a life-
time in the valley, they've both
seen plenty of changes here —
some good, some bad, but few
that could be avoided.
"I was born in Somers in
1930," Carl said. "I liked it bet-
ter here years ago, but I can't
stop progress. Can you?"
Reporter Bill Spence may be
reached at 758-4459 or by e-mail
at bspence@dailyinterlake.com
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