How's-It-Going? Category

At An Old Millsite, Big Plans Get Put on Ice

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.

Guest Commentary

“Peaceful Enjoyment of Your Property” Except in Montana

The Montana Supreme Court finally handed down its long awaited ruling on the so-called “Mitchell Slough case.” Brought by the Bitterroot River Protective Association (BRPA), the appeal challenged the right of “rich out-of-state landowners” to limit public access to the Mitchell Slough. The plaintiffs argued that the Mitchell is a “natural, perennial-flowing stream” and as such is open to access by the public under Montana’s Stream Access Law (SAL). The state supreme court bought BRPA’s argument and reversed a lower court ruling denying public access.

The fact that the lower court found the Mitchell to be man-made while the supreme court found the opposite illustrates the slippery nature of the definition. Like so many legal battles, however, the technical legal sparring in the Mitchell case missed two truly important implications of the decision.

Special Report

Inside the $100-million GE-Wyoming Coal Project

The story behind the new $100-million GE-Wyoming coal gasification project goes back to the early 1980s when a then-California-based energy company, Tosco, was trying to extract fuel from massive oil shale deposits outside Grand Junction, Colorado.

The challenge at the time, former Tosco CEO Morton Winston recalled in an interview with WyoFile.com, was to build a device that could introduce precisely measured amounts of crushed oil shale into a mildly pressurized chamber. Winston turned to a brilliant British mechanical engineer named Donald Firth for help.

Update

Court Opens Mitchell Slough in Landmark Stream Access Case

For more than 20 years, the Mitchell Slough in Montana's Bitterroot Valley has become a showcase of the battle between public access and private property rights and Monday the Montana Supreme Court ruled in favor of the former.

With a 54-page ruling, the Supreme Court deemed the waterway a natural stream, which means access to it is protected by Montana's stream access law, which is among the strongest in the country. The ruling has been coming for more than two years and overturns two lower-court decisions that had defined the stream the way the Bitterroot Conservation District and several high-profile landowners had advocated it be: Just a ditch.

The case, which has been watched closely across the West as a crucial test of stream access law, has been a long-running extravaganza of protests, celebrity, and political maneuvering but more than that, it has been a spur for complex and often heated discussions on water rights, landownership, what's natural and what's not and most of all, how to square the values of the Old West with the demands of the New.

The Ravalli Republic's Perry Backus has a detailed story on yesterday's ruling here and to catch up on the case and it's implications, Greg Lemon wrote a very good primer for NewWest.Net when the case first went to the high court.

Real Estate Woes

North Idaho Hit Hard by Slump

It's not a big surprise that Sandpoint, Coeur d'Alene and other parts of North Idaho would be suffering from the real estate bust and the souring global economy; the area had been among the fastest-growing in the country, and was increasingly reliant on expensive resort development and second homes. But Associated Press writer Nicholas K. Geranios today details just how tough it has become: the "preferred builder" at the Idaho Club, a new luxury golf community near Sandpoint, is going out of business after failing to sell a single home in the past year.

The region, a classic story of conomic transformation from a mining and logging base, could be in for a double-whammy because the global downturn is also taking the shine off metal prices (just six months ago there was talk of a mining revival) and hurting the wood-products industry badly.

News Analysis

Tim Blixseth Absent from Yellowstone Club Debacle - For Now

It's an odd twist of fate that the Blixseth who was sitting in the witness chair in a Missoula federal courthouse Wednesday was named Edra. Sure, Edra Blixseth is nominally the owner of the Yellowstone Club, the uber-exclusive resort near Big Sky that's now mired in bankruptcy. She thus bears much of the responsibility for trying to sort out the mess, even though her equity in the club is almost certainly worthless and lender Credit Suisse effectively controls the property. She's been involved with the venture from the beginning, and is certainly no business neophyte.

Yet as everyone familiar with the situation knows all too well, the Blixseth who built the Yellowstone Club, the person who persuaded the likes of Bill Gates to join up, the person whose non-stop, on-the-edge deal-making both made the club possible and created its current predicament, is named Tim. His sudden absence from the scene is strange; dozens of lawyers, thousands of pages of legal filings, a financial fiasco of major proportions -- and hardly a word about Tim.

News Brief

Bitterroot Resort Gets Initial OK from Forest Service

The proposed Bitterroot Resort passed an early hurdle from the Bitterroot National Forest on Monday.

"We passed our first screening," said manager Jim Gill. "This is just one of many steps."

The Bitterroot Resort seeks to develop as part of its four-season resort 3,000 acres of Forest Service land (down from the 12,000 originally requested in 2005) for gladed skiing, Nordic skiing, and mountain biking, none of which would require ski lifts to access.

Tough Times at the Club

Yellowstone Club Files For Bankruptcy

Late Monday the uber-exclusive Yellowstone Club near Bozeman filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after negotiations broke down with lender Credit Suisse, from whom it borrowed some $300 million several years ago.

The first court filings, which bear the signature of club manager and co-owner Edra Blixseth, cite a combined debt of $344 million and assets of about $1.1 billion. The bankrupt companies include Yellowstone Mountain Club, Yellowstone Development, Big Sky Ridge, and Yellowstone Club Construction Co, according to court documents.

"I think we had a perfect storm. We're in a tough liquidity position," said club spokesman Bill Keegan. "We were seeking new long-term financing as part of our long-term capital needs, and then the lending markets froze. We felt it was best to protect the club, the members, and our future by seeking Chapter 11 protection."

Missoula City Government

Missoula City Council: There’s UFDA to Consider

Here's Missoula Office of Planning and Grants director Roger Millar's short take on the city's zoning book: It's a 36-year-old update of an 80-year-old original, and most changes made to it over the decades have been preventive measures taken after some tragic or lame occurrence.

"Something terrible happens, and the city council directs staff to write codes so it can't happen again," Millar said. "We have all sorts of ways to say, 'No,' rather than an ordinance to facilitate what the community wants."

Part of the effort on reworking the zoning involves an amendment to the urban area's growth plan, the Urban Fringe Development Area Project, known as UFDA. On Monday night the city council will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. on UFDA at its chambers at 140 W. Pine St.