Kalispell Plans Ahead While Preserving the Past
By Kristi Albertson
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Big Mountain, Whitefish, Montana
Courtesy of Big Mountain
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With its breathtaking beauty, boundless recreation opportunities, and friendly down-home atmosphere, the Flathead Valley draws people from all corners of the globe like trout to a caddisfly. The reasons they come and the length of time they stay vary, but nearly everyone who finds the valley expects to sample a bit of “real Montana” living.
It just makes sense to incorporate that experience into everything visitors do, down to the very beds they sleep in. So when Red Lion Corp. decided to remodel and expand its West Coast Kalispell Center Hotel, designers were determined to give the new hotel an authentic Montana aura. It took eight months and $5 million, but when Red Lion Hotel Kalispell opened June 26, 2006, its rustic-yet-modern lodge feel captured the essence of the state.
“When we designed the building, we wanted to keep it true to the area,” General Manager Lisa Brown said. “You’re not going to see any other Red Lion like this one we have here. It just captures the Montana décor.”
Upon entering the lobby, guests are greeted by a giant chandelier made up of antlers. Next to garner their attention is the stone fireplace on the wall. Evidence of old Montana hangs from every wall, from a pair of old-fashioned snowshoes to black-and-white photos of the valley as it used to be to, of course, in the land the rivers run through, fly rods, and fish baskets.
The rustic ambiance extends to the guest rooms, with wildlife art on the walls and lampshades bearing silhouetted game animals on the desks. Each existing room was remodeled and 38 new rooms were added, bringing the total to 170. The hospitality rooms, ballrooms, and courtyards were also redone, and the main entry was moved to face the main highway instead of Center Street.
The hotel’s changes have created a “homier, Montana kind of feel,” Kalispell Mayor Pam Kennedy said. “And putting it out so it faces Highway 93 makes a lot of sense. People walk in and out of that hotel, and the first thing they see are our gorgeous mountains.”
Those gorgeous mountains remind guests and hotel staff alike why they came to the Flathead Valley in the first place. The hotel’s expansion and facelift are a microcosm of what is happening throughout the area; the word is out about this charming, beautiful valley, and people are pouring into it at a rate the area has never before experienced.
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New red Lion Inn.
GlacierWorld.com/Craig Moore
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In 2000, Kalispell’s population was a little over 14, 200. Last year, that number was about 18,500. And if growth continues at this rate — about 6 percent a year — 20,000 people will call Kalispell home by December, according to City Manager Jim Patrick.
From 1960 to 1990, the city only gained about 1,000 residents, he said. It added as many new faces throughout the 1990s. Since the turn of the century, however, Kalispell has grown by about 1,000 people each year.
“So it’s exponential growth,” Patrick said, “and we just don’t see it slowing down.”
Change is coming hard and fast, especially in the retail and residential arenas. In a few short years, Kalispell has become a shopping mecca, attracting people who used to drive to Missoula or Spokane to make their purchases.
“I think that a good thing that has come from growth is you do have local shopping,” Kennedy said. “We have become a regional destination area.”
“As long as people come here to shop, the entire business community benefits and dollars remain in the local economy,” she added.
“They’re not just shopping the big, national chain stores,” she said. “They’re also shopping our local stores, and that is making us all successful.”
“As people and businesses arrive, they stimulate one another, creating a symbiotic relationship,” Patrick said.
“In a roundabout way, what we’ve been able to do is create a customer base that attracts some of the larger retail stores,” he said. “Now we’re looking at industries that may be looking at moving this way because we have, first of all, a customer base and, second of all, a workforce that they can tap into.”
Tapping into the workforce is proving difficult for some employers. At 3.6 percent, Flathead County’s unemployment rate is at an all-time low, and for the first time Kalispell is experiencing a glut of employment opportunities.
“The reality is that we have an awful lot of jobs here, and we can’t fill them because we don’t have enough people,” Kennedy said. “As we’re looking at trying to make sure we have all kinds of jobs available — and good-paying jobs — we try to work with companies to bring them into the community. But if we don’t have the employees to fill the jobs, it doesn’t work out very well.”
If the city continues its unprecedented growth, however, perhaps the gap between open jobs and available workers will shrink.
“We’re going to become a nation of 300 million people very soon. Obviously, some of those people are going to come to the Flathead,” Kennedy said. “You can’t tell people, ‘No, we don’t want you here.’”
Actually, there are some residents who would like to do just that. Both lifelong citizens and big-city transplants appreciate the quiet and lack of traffic on the highway. Both groups loathe the idea of the Flathead Valley losing the rural charm they cherish.
“We’re going a little bit fast, and that gives citizens concern,” Patrick said. “A lot of the residents in the city are kind of reluctant to name advantages [of growth] because, of course, they see some of the ruralness and things they came here to Montana for kind of going away. But I see there’s some neat amenities that we have planned for the future, some things planned through developers that wouldn’t happen if we didn’t have a consumer base, things that we wouldn’t be able to support as a city if we were smaller and had a smaller tax base.”
Many of those amenities involve recreation opportunities and open space within the city limits. Few things are final at this point, but ideas include increasing the number of bike and walking trails and better connecting those trails. Patrick would also like to plan for more parks.
“We’re looking at additional areas for regional parks, such as Lawrence and Woodland,” he said. “We need at least one more in the near future.”
Trails and parks are part of the city’s commitment to maintaining its rural atmosphere, even as it grows. Each new subdivision must have some acreage set aside for parkland. Small developments have the option of paying a fee instead, which will go toward building or maintaining a nearby park.
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Train and Mountains
Courtesy of Big Mountain
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“We’re trying to preserve the rural feel, to maintain open space within the city, so you don’t wake up one morning, stick your arm out the window, and reach your neighbor’s house,” Patrick said.
It’s crucial to focus on green space while the city is in the midst of its growth spurt, Kennedy added.
“We know that if we don’t preserve some open space now, there’s no going back later,” she said.
City leaders are also attending to more practical matters, including long-range planning for transportation, sewer, and water. The city’s rapid expansion makes it difficult to predict what citizens might need in the future, but new growth plans are attempting to do just that. “Kalispell is currently working on a sewer treatment upgrade,” Kennedy said, “and although it isn’t finished yet, planners are already looking ahead to the next upgrade.”
It’s that forward thinking that will prove crucial in managing the population explosion.
“We’re trying to get out in front of the growth to try to decide, first of all, how do we build infrastructure to support it?” Patrick said. “And second, it gives us an idea of how we can start focusing on impact fees, so the existing population does not have to pay for the growth, so it does not come out of tax dollars. We’re getting out in front of the growth and being able to better control it and direct it than we have in the past.
“A lot is happening right now,” he added, but was quick to emphasize that change is necessary for Kalispell’s success. “Cities, to be healthy, need to grow.”
And in the midst of that growth, Kalispell’s citizens are learning how to protect the views they love and the quality of life they’ve come to expect from their “real Montana” town. They guard these carefully—and not just for their own sakes.
“Bottom line, it’s leaving a legacy for our kids so they can enjoy a lot of the same things we’ve become accustomed to enjoying in our lifetime,” Patrick said.
Kennedy agreed. “I think that’s the most important thing for me, that we’re making the most important decisions for our grandchildren.”
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