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City manager: Hotel a 'fluid' situation

by Chris Peterson Hungry Horse News
| September 23, 2015 5:00 AM

A hotel, a bakery and a pizza place.

Columbia Falls should see all three of those new businesses and much more in the coming months, City Manager Susan Nicosia told members of the Columbia Falls Lions Club during a breakfast last week.

The hotel developers want to put a facility on the Norem property next to Pinewood Park, Nicosia said. Mick Ruis, who has already purchased several properties on Nucleus Avenue, is one of the partners in the project.

Nicosia said the hotel would not be a chain, but independently owned and operated.

But on Monday after a two-hour long meeting, the project was still in a bit of a flux, as the developers looked for ways to build the hotel without moving a main sewer line that crosses the property, Nicosia told Columbia Falls City Council members.

The developers would like to break ground this fall so it can be open by next summer's tourist season. They could come back to the city in the next few weeks with a planned urban development, which could come to the planning board by Oct. 13.

She described plans as a "fluid" situation.

The Norem property has long been eyed for a hotel for years, but nothing has ever come to fruition. If this hotel actually does happen, it would be a significant boost for the city.

She said Columbia Falls has been missing out on capturing tourism and other revenue without a large hotel. When the state speech tournament was held here last winter, the teams all had to stay in Kalispell and Whitefish.

Attracting a hotel to the city has been a top priority of the Columbia Falls City Council.

Ruis did not return a call seeking comment on his plans. Ruis is not a stranger to Columbia Falls. He once owned the Mountain Shadows Resort in Columbia Heights as well as other properties in the city.

In other developments, a new pizza place is planned for Nucleus Avenue as is a bakery.

The bakery will be in the former Pitman doctor's office and the pizza place will be in the former Back in Time Antique shop.

One of the challenges of putting restaurants and other businesses that need large amounts of water is the water lines - they're only three-quarter inch lines and need to be upgraded, Nicosia noted.

She said in the future, the city's tax increment finance district could help businesses with those expenses, either through a cost-sharing agreement or through loans.

On the industrial side of things, SmartLam is expected to expand its Columbia Falls operation to the industrial park on the north end of the city. The SmartLam building would be 140,000 square feet with two production lines.

The city needs to extend sewer and other services to the property, including broadband Internet access.

Before the real estate crash in 2008, builders would go out and build a building hoping to attract businesses. No more. Now they want a tenant in place, she noted.

As for the future of the Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. plant, she said she envisions it becoming a residential housing area or resort after the site is cleaned up.

She noted that only 70 acres of the 3,200-acre property were actually used for industrial purposes. While there is concern about the site being declared a Superfund site, Nicosia noted that the pollution is contained on the site itself.

"This isn't Libby," she noted, where cancer-causing asbestos was found throughout the town.

Over the years, the city has sponsored over $1 million in economic loans to businesses, she said. Right now the city has about $250,000 available to loan through its community development block grant program she said.