Parking garage slated for 2008

Public input needed for this project and Central Avenue's 2009 reconstruction

By RICHARD HANNERS - Whitefish Pilot

Construction of a downtown parking garage next to Whitefish Middle School will take place next year, city engineer John Wilson said last week.

A conceptual design has been developed that includes 220 parking spaces on three floors and about 12,500 square feet of retail or office space on two floors, along with about 163 feet of decorative facade along the Spokane Avenue side of the structure.

The plan is to get the parking garage up and operating before major reconstruction work takes place on Central Avenue. No major road projects are slated for Whitefish next year, Wilson said, but reconstruction of Central Avenue from Railroad Street to Third Street will take place during the tourist "shoulder seasons" in 2009.

The parking garage, which is expected to be expensive, will likely be paid through tax-increment financing (TIF) funds and sale or lease of the retail-office space, Wilson said, but the final details have not been worked out. TIF funds are accumulated through growth and development in the city's TIF district, which includes downtown Whitefish.

Resort tax money will be used to pay for the Central Avenue project, Wilson said. Sixty-five percent of resort tax money is earmarked for streets, and much of that is paid by businesses downtown.

The 2 percent resort tax has generated about $7.6 million since it began in 1996.

A downtown infrastructure advisory committee that worked with engineering consultants Robert Peccia & Associates includes Gary Stephens, Rhonda Fitzgerald, Jill Evans, Bayard Dominick, Chance Cooke, John Kramer, mayor Cris Coughlin, city manager Gary Marks and city planner David Taylor.

An open house on the designs for the parking garage and Central Avenue will take place Dec. 12 at 7 p.m. at the Armory. Wilson and Ryan Mitchell, of Robert Peccia & Associates, will show a PowerPoint presentation, public input will be taken, and there will be a question-and-answer period.

After that, the design for the parking garage will go to the city's Architectural Review Committee, site review and then the city council by sometime in January. Construction could begin by summer 2008.

Parking garage

According to the conceptual design, the parking garage at Spokane and Second Street will cover half a city block and stand about 29 feet high. There will be three parking floors, but the top floor will not be covered. Mitchell said the current conceptual design is "Alternative 9A."

"We talked about a fourth parking floor, but there's not enough demand and it would be very expensive," Wilson said.

Walker Consultants, of Denver, which specializes in parking structures, helped with the design and with Robert Peccia's inventory and study of the current downtown parking situation.

Wilson said the draft report of the ongoing study, which began in June, supports construction of a 200- to 300-space parking structure.

There are currently 60 parking spaces at the unfinished site, so the net effect of the 220 new spaces will be 160. The structure will be open 24 hours a day. Whitefish Middle School staff could use 30 spaces, and more spaces could end up going to the nine retail and office spaces that will be built with the structure.

Wilson said a Ford Expedition with a ski rack was used as a model to determine the dimensions of driving lanes, parking spaces and ceiling clearances. Historical and current photos of downtown were used to design the exterior of the parking structure.

The width of the Second Street-side businesses will be about 25 feet — the same as other downtown businesses. The facade along Spokane Avenue and First Street will resemble downtown storefronts, with mesh-covered windows that are open to the parking areas, allowing light and air to pass. The alley side will look like any other unfinished concrete parking structure.

Vehicles will enter the parking structure from First Street. A public rest room and a retail space will be located on the ground floor at the northeast corner. The advisory committee hopes to revitalize First Street by including some elements of the design there, Wilson said.

Plans call for eight retail or office spaces on two floors facing south on Second Street. A three-story tower would provide stairways and an elevator linking the parking floors and retail spaces with the sidewalk on Spokane Avenue.

Construction of the 50-foot deep retail-office section on Second Street must take place first, Wilson said. There will be no room on the busy Spokane Avenue-Second Street intersection for construction equipment and materials after the parking garage is completed.

Whether the retail-office space will be sold or leased has not yet been determined, Wilson said, but money from that space will help finance the parking structure. Possible tenants include Whitefish's Chamber of Commerce, Convention and Visitor Bureau and Housing Authority.

Central Avenue

"The idea is not to change downtown but to improve it," Mitchell said about plans to reconstruct Central Avenue in 2009.

In addition to fixing the roadway, underground utilities will be upgraded — including an 80-year-old cast-iron water main — and streetscaping will make Central Avenue more pedestrian friendly.

The conceptual design calls for widening sidewalks from 10 feet to 11.5 but narrowing driving lanes from 14 feet to 12. Angled parking spaces will stay nine feet wide but be lengthened half a foot to 16.5 feet, and the number of spaces per block will drop from 50 to 43. Bulb-outs and elevated mid-block crossings will eliminate about 21 spaces over the three-block project area.

Streetscaping plans for intersections include trees in the bulb-outs and elevated pedestrian crossings — including Second Street, otherwise known as U.S. Highway 93.

"Crandall Arambula, the consultants who worked on the Downtown Master Plan, stressed the importance of continuity, of tying Central Avenue together across Second Street all the way to Third Street," Wilson said. "The raised intersection and other design elements will help do that."

Iron and wood-slat park benches and trash cans, and green, fluted-metal street lights designed to accommodate the city's Christmas decorations are other streetscaping elements.

The big problem facing project planners will be how to get all this construction done with the least impact to downtown businesses. The existing roadway must be removed down to six feet in places, from store foundation to store foundation, right across the street, without toppling existing awnings.

Wilson said a one-foot thick layer of concrete beneath the existing asphalt will be difficult to remove — and extremely noisy if it involves months of jackhammering.

Plans call for rebuilding one block at a time. Work on a block must be completely wrapped up by July 1 and then resume on a new block on Labor Day.

Wilson said he's talking about creating an "In This Together" campaign to get the city, businesses, designers and contractors working together to minimize impacts.