Yummmmm, plans for a pie factory

Developer Mick Ruis’s plans for Columbia Falls don’t stop with the new Cedar Creek Lodge. Ruis, who has bought a host of properties in the city in recent months, said last week he also wants to bring a pie factory to Nucleus Avenue in the coming months.

Called Columbia Falls Pie Factory, it would be modeled after a similar pie company in California.

Ruis said his plan is to start work on remodeling the former Park Merc building to house the business soon. He said he envisions a bakery with large windows where people can see the pies being made.

Ruis also has plans for apartment housing in the downtown area and said he wants to take the former Davall Building, remodel it, and make it into a “mini mall” of sorts, where vendors could rent space for about $300 a month, as opposed to the thousands they might spend for rent of a normal storefront.

Ruis lived here in the late 1990s. Back then he owned the Nord Apartment Building on Nucleus and what was then the Glacier Mountain Shadows Hotel at the corner of Highway 2 and 206. But he moved back to San Diego, California in 2000 and started a scaffolding company. Today, American Scaffold has five branches across the United States and is the largest supplier of scaffolding for the U.S. Navy, Ruis said. When Plum Creek’s Medium Density Fiberboard plant suffered an explosion last year, American Scaffold supplied the scaffold to fix the building. In fact, it’s highlighted on the company’s website.

Ruis and his wife Wendy moved back to Columbia Falls about three years ago. The couple love the town and he said “the opportunity is right” to invest in the city.

“There’s nothing like investing in your home and where you live,” Ruis said.

The Cedar Creek Lodge, which is a $5.5 million project will utilize local contractors, materials and workers, Ruis noted. It also has local financial support — Freedom Bank has invested in the project, Ruis said.

“We really want to thank Freedom Bank President Don Bennett,” he said.

Columbia Falls resident Mark Cahill is construction manager. But there has been a parting of ways with Rod Shaw, an original partner in the Lodge project. Shaw, a Canadian, said he was stepping away from the project and wished it well. He handed over the plans for the hotel to Ruis last week. Shaw said his plan was to move back to his place in Canada, outside of Cardston, Alberta.