Flooring plant in C-Falls future? Maybe

Even though the economic health of the Flathead Valley has taken a turn for the worse, there are likely brighter days ahead — and as soon as this spring.

Former Flathead County Commissioner Gary Hall said during Tuesday’s Columbia Falls Area Chamber of Commerce economic development meeting that In House, a German flooring company, still has Columbia Falls on its radar for the location of a manufacturing facility.

In information received from Montana West Economic Development Interim Executive Director Lyle Phillips, In House has allocated $1 million for preliminary planning and site review. Flathead Economic Development Authority, known as the Port Authority, is also involved in facilitating the Germany company’s needs.

Representatives are expected to visit Columbia Falls in March, and have a prime interest in locating the facility at the industrial park in town.

“They’re not opposed to building while we’re down (economically),” Hall said during the meeting, and if In House settles on Columbia Falls ground-breaking could come as early as August.

“Time will tell if they will pull the trigger on this,” Don Bennett, president of Freedom Bank, said.

Initially, the company would employ about 50 people and the staff could expand from there.

Bennett said the industrial park is the preferred site for the facility since In House needs a railroad spur for its operation.

“They’re trying to think in the long term. They’d be up and running by the time things turn around,” Bennett said.

Hall cautioned that there is no guarantee that the German flooring company would build and operate a manufacturing facility in Columbia Falls.

On another note, Bennett said a renewable energy company is considering locating in northwestern Montana, initially in Ronan and later in northern Flathead County — potentially at the county landfill.

BILL DAKIN of RE/MAX Mountain View said he’s noticing a “positive trend” in the local real estate market. An assisted living facility could be built in Columbia Falls, and a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) project is targeted for Kalispell.

Home sales were soft in November and December, which is traditionally the case. Properties in the $300,000-plus range are slow movers, according to Dakin, but the real estate market is showing overall improvement.

That’s not the case for parcels of land.

“We’re so over-subdivided,” Dakin said of Columbia Falls, which is hurting land sales.

Dakin believes there is not a “credit crunch” in terms of financing a home in northwestern Montana as much as many other parts of the country.

BENNETT SPOKE about what has been conceived as a bailout of large financial institutions in the country because of the economic downturn. The money is an investment in banks since the funds must be paid back — initially at a 5 percent interest rate.

He said investment banks, not traditional banks, were primarily the cause of the economic crisis.

“Now they’re gone,” Bennett said of investment banks.

State Farm agent Lyle Mitchell, the Chamber president, said people have gotten into financial trouble by overextending their credit.

“People who have abused the system are going to be hurting,” Mitchell said.