Loading...
08/16/01 DI/Board Recommends AmendmentsBoard rc ,ommends amen dments need d for G By WILLIAM L. SPENCE The Daily Inter Lake The Kalispell City -County Planning Board gave its unan- imous support to a master plan amendment on Tuesday, helping to pave the way for a proposed regional shopping regional mall project mall in Evergreen. The amendment, which must still be approved by the Flathead County commission- ers and the Kalispell City Council; would allow commer- cial zoning of 144 acres just northeast of the intersection of LaSalle Road and East Reserve Drive. Planning board recommends Hearing scheduled I testimony late Tuesday night, several speakers suggested that the proposal was being hurried through the planning process. "It's going way too fast," said Kalispell resident Suzanne Johnson. "It may be a good thing, but it hasn't been given due consideration. There are huge issues involved." James `Bucky" Wolford said Glacier Mall would have four major department store tenants, plus 75 or 80 specialty retail shops, a movie theater, and a food court with seating for more than 500. "We're looking at bringing in a lot of national tenants that aren't represented in this mar- ket today," such as The Gap, The Limited and Old Navy, he said. "We anticipate retail sales at this center conservatively to be in excess of $150 million per year," Wolford said, or about 15 percent of Flathead County's total annual retail spending. A project that size will com- pletely change development pat- terns in the area, Johnson said, and undermine the significant investment of public funds that Kalispell has made over the last several years to improve the downtown core. Diane Conradi, executive director of Citizens for a Better Flathead, noted that a special Planning board meeting has been called next Tuesday to con- sider Wolford's request for a zoning change. Two days later, the commissioners have a pub- lic hearing scheduled on the zone change. The special planning board meeting on Wolford's zoning change will be held Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the Kalispell City Council chambers. A public hearing on the zone change is scheduled before the county commissioners on Thursday at 11:30 a.m. "This is the largest retail expansion the valley has seen in a long time ... and its being fast - tracked," Conradi said. "It isn't giving people a chance to partic- ipate or express their concerns." -Board president Greg Stevens hotly disputed that anything "underhanded" was going on. "This isn't a rush job in any sense," Stevens said. "This mas- ter plan amendment is proceed- ing no differently than any other amendment I've been involved in." The special meeting for the zone change was only called because of timing requirements related to an Oct.1 zoning dead- line, he said. The consideration of several county planning applications was recently moved forward to avoid any potential conflict with that dead- line. Wolford said if the master plan amendment and zoning change requests are approved, construction on Glacier Mall could begin next summer, with an opening scheduled for 2004. "We have two department stores, one on the north end and one on the south end, who are both willing to go forward," Wol- ford said. "Neither is represent- ed in this market today." Chattanooga -based Wolford Development wants to build Glacier Mall on the properly. The plan amendment and commercial zoning are need- ed before the 750,000-square- foot project can proceed. During two hours of public See MALL on Page A3 master plan amendments Kalispell and the Flathead IValley are attractive markets -to such retailers because the area is growing so fast, he said, and because it's under -represented. "I think this project would preclude people having to go to Missoula or Spokane to shop," Wolford said. Carla Clarke of Kalispell stayed at the meeting until 10 p.m. for the chance to express her support for the mall. "I'm just a shopper with kids," she said. "I've had to shop on the Internet or go to Missoula to find things. I'd love to have more opportunities — I'd much rather stay here. I think this mall would be good for our econ- omy." Tenants in Glacier Mall would employ about 1,300 people, Wol- ford predicted, not to mention the local construction jobs that would be created during the two-year building process. "I've heard the comment that i retail jobs aren't high -paying, but I beg to differ," he said. National Retail Federation i surveys have found that the average starting salary for major department store man- agers is $80,000, he said, while specialty shop managers start at $29,000. "We'll have 75 or 80 of them," Wolford said. "For store clerks, the national average wage is $9.08 per hour. Our total annual payroll would be in the neigh- borhood of $30 million." (Using Wolford's figures, the total payroll would actually be closer to $25 million for starting salaries. Even that could be opti- mistic, as it's questionable whether retail wages here would match the national aver- age.) Don Connors, who lives directly south of the proposed mall site, voiced a common con - tern when he asked "what the mall will do to us." "I can't throw around figures, like 30 million or 1,300,>, Con- nors said. "I'm just a little guy, born and raised here, and I think Kalispell is quickly losing its small-town atmosphere. "The county planner said `all' this property is being used for now is barley," he said. "What's wrong with barley, or wheat, or birds? This thing is being pushed too fast. We haven't had an opportunity to talk about it." Stevens said the planning' board has spent a great deal of time examining the question of where commercial development should take place. "This isn't a brand new issue," he said. Following the public hearing, Stevens argued that Wolford didn't even need a master plan amendment, because his propos- . al is already in substantial com- pliance with the goals set forth in that document. For example, the plan explicit- ly calls for maintaining Kalispell's position as the retail center of northwest Montana, he said — a goal that Glacier Mall would likely support. It also identifies the northeast entrance to Kalispell as an appropriate location for commercial devel- opment. "The master plan is what we are to be guided by when mak- ing land -use decisions," Stevens said. Noting that Wolford is willing to be annexed into Kalispell, and isn't asking for financial assis- tance of any kind, board mem- ber Rob Heinecke said the pro- ject had been well -detailed and well -presented. "I have to hang my hat on something if I'm going to deny a request," Heinecke said. "With this application, there's nothing to hang a hat on."