Park eyes $15 mil renovations for Many Glacier

Glacier National Park’s Many Glacier Hotel could see final renovations in a couple of years, said Jim Foster, the Park’s chief of facility management.

The north end of the hotel saw more than $10 million in renovations completed last year, including a remodel of the spacious dining room.

Now the Park is eyeing a $15 million to $20 million project to complete renovations on the south end of the building, including possibly reconstructing the double helix staircase to the basement that was once the centerpiece of the hotel’s lobby. The staircase was removed in the 1950s during reconstruction.

Most of the upcoming renovations will be “life safety” repairs, including upgrades to fire control systems, replacing old electric wiring, removing asbestos and seismic stabilization of the structure, Foster noted.

The project is considered a top line item construction project by the National Park Service, Foster said. It will take about a year to design, and then Park officials will have to defend the project to NPS administrators in Washington, D.C.

Park officials hope to begin construction in the fall of 2015 if the project is approved. It will take about two years to complete if done in a single phase. The project will take longer to complete in multiple phases.

Foster also provided an update on the Many Glacier Road. Federal Highway Administration engineers have installed inclinometers at some locations along the road to track how and why the surface continues to slump. The road runs along Lake Sherburne, a reservoir with fluctuating water levels. The road is also undermined by creeks and seeps.

As a result, the road is in bad shape and under nearly continual repair, especially where it runs adjacent to the lake. The hope is come up with a solution by 2019 or 2020. Acting Park superintendent Kym Hall noted that might mean the long-term solution would be to keep the road unpaved in some areas — each time the road slumps, the asphalt surface is ruined.