How's-It-Going? Category
At An Old Millsite, Big Plans Get Put on Ice
An old mill site in downtown Missoula is slated to become a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood. But the economy isn't cooperating.By Robert Struckman, 12-02-08
A prominent brownfield clean-and-build project in downtown Missoula has been put on hold until the economy picks up.
The weed-infested former Champion Mill site just west of Ogren Field, the home of Missoula’s minor league baseball team, has long been an example of urban blight and a symbol of the lost glory days of Montana’s logging industry.
More than two years ago, local developer Kevin Mytty and finance partner Ed Wetherbee teamed with the Missoula Redevelopment Agency and others to clean the land of its minor environmental contaminants—basically a lot of sawdust—and transform it into a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood with houses, apartments, townhouses and space for commercial and retail tenants.
The cleanup plan took months longer than expected, and the project still hasn’t received the final post-cleanup OK from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality, said the MRA’s Chris Behan.
“The delay has pushed the development into the present economy, in which financing for projects like this will be impacted,” Behan said.
Mytty has said the company he and Wetherbee formed to do the work, the Millsite Redevelopment Project, never intended to build all the residential and commercial structures there. For that, the company would sell lots to the secondary market—mainly other local contractors who would buy lots, build and the sell the finished products, Behan said.
“The secondary market is pretty much at a standstill…. So that’s… where we’re at,” Behan said.
So far, the downturn has had mixed effects on other MRA projects. The new First Interstate building downtown on Higgins Avenue near the Clark Fork River has continued, full-steam-ahead, Behan said, while a planned Prudential Montana (formerly Gillespie Realty Co.) building behind the new Missoula Federal Credit Union on Russell Street has been postponed indefinitely.
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