Backslope Brewing looks to add employee housing

The Columbia Falls City-County planning board will take up an application by Darin and Carla Fisher, owners of Backslope Brewing, to put in dormitory-style apartments in the basement of the former State Farm Insurance Building adjacent to the brewery on Highway 2.

The apartments, which will serve four people total in a dormitory-style fashion, are for brewery employees.

“That is their sole purpose,” Carla Fisher said Friday.

If approved, the project would allow the residential units as a deviation to the commercial zoning.

Finding housing for employees has become exceedingly difficult in the past few years as demand has outstripped supply. Some local businesses have decided to put in their own housing,

Canyon Foods in Hungry Horse also has plans to put in employee housing and many homes in West Glacier have been bought up by businesses there for employee housing over the years, where they once were homes for full, or at least part-time, residents.

The Fishers acquired the building recently from Lyle Mitchell, who moved the State Farm Insurance offices to the quonset building on Eighth Street East just off Nucleus Avenue which was previously a bike repair shop.

The brewery employs about 50 to 55 staffers in the summer months — many of them part-time, Carla Fisher said.

In addition to the beer, it’s also one of the most popular restaurants in the city and is typically packed in the summer months.

Carla Fisher said the current plans are to put in a walk-in cooler and food prep area in the back half of the upper building. The front part of the building may eventually be reserved for retail space, but that’s at least a year out, Fisher said.

The planning board will take up the application Tuesday night (Feb. 15) at 6:30 p.m. at city hall. If they approve it, it will then go onto city council for final consideration.