The Missoula Redevelopment Agency board has given the nod to the city to purchase a roughly 13-acre plot near Southgate Mall.

The board, which approves expenditures of tax-increment financing dollars for development projects in urban renewal districts around the city, voted unanimously Thursday to approve using up to $5.9 million in TIF funds to purchase the so-called Southgate Crossing land, a series of conjoined parcels under two owners southwest of the mall. The land, formerly the site of a lumber mill, has been vacant for decades, and several attempts to develop it over the last 20 years have failed to progress “beyond the conceptual stage,” according to MRA staff.

The city has not formalized plans for the future of the site, though MRA staff said in a memo that the city’s vision is for “housing, a new park, employment opportunities, commercial and retail uses, a potential transit station, and a new north/south connection between South Avenue and Brooks Street.”

City leaders and MRA board members have said they’re hopeful that leveraging TIF funds at Southgate Crossing will create a “ripple effect” that generates further investment in the adjacent corridor. The purchase also fits within the framework of the city’s recently adopted Midtown Master Plan, which calls for increasing density and multi-modal transit connectivity to other parts of the city.

“When this goes, it’ll be a wildfire. What a bump for Midtown.”

“That whole corridor — and to me, that corridor is west of Brooks and south of the mall, over by the trail — everything there is going to be ripe for redevelopment,” MRA board member Natasha Jones, an attorney with Boone Karlberg, said during the board’s meeting Thursday. “When this goes, it’ll be a wildfire. What a bump for Midtown.”

The purchase would leave the urban renewal district that encompasses the site with around $1.9 million in TIF funds remaining.

The agency board’s vote Thursday sets up the Missoula City Council to vote to execute the deal, which is expected later in November.

“This is a keystone property that has been identified for many years, and it is something that we are standing on today as a culmination of an incredible amount of community partnership,” Missoula Mayor Andrea Davis said in a press conference at the site earlier this week, as quoted by the Missoulian.

At Thursday’s meeting, Davis said that through the Missoula Economic Partnership there is already “keen interest” in the site from private developers.

Tax-increment financing is an economic development tool that allows cities to set aside portions of future property tax revenues to incentivize redevelopment in districts deemed “blighted.” The new revenue is invested in public-facing needs like sidewalks, street lighting and sewer lines. TIF detractors — and there are a few of them on city council — say such investments amount to a public subsidy of private development.

MRA board members on Thursday acknowledged that not everyone wants the city to be so directly involved in private development. But they said that the use of TIF dollars allows the city to have “skin in the game” during the development process, as board chair Karl Englund put it.

This means the city can shape the vision for private development, council member and ex-officio MRA board member Mike Nugent said Thursday.

“Without MRA’s investment and without this tool, I don’t think there’s any chance these parcels would be combined to meet our focus inward,” he said. “You wouldn’t see it. It would not reach its full potential.”

Council OKs another South Hills subdivision

The Missoula City Council this week voted 9-1 to approve a 97-lot residential subdivision on 31 acres in the South Hills.

The Meadow View Homes project is the second residential development the council has approved in the same area of the South Hills in recent months. Like the multi-stage, 400-plus unit Wildroot development that the council approved at the end of the summer, the Meadow View project generated substantial negative feedback from neighborhood residents concerned about traffic, a loss of wildlife and the natural viewshed and other changes to life in the hills.

But council members said this week they couldn’t stop a developer from building on privately owned land just because neighbors were resistant to change, especially as the city looks to a future of high population growth in a heavily constricted housing market.

That includes councilmember Bob Campbell, who lives adjacent to the site. He said he was voting for the project despite what it might do “to the enjoyment of my property.”

“I am a believer that people have a right to own their property and exercise those rights,” he added.

Council member Daniel Carlino, who also opposed the Wildroot development, voted against Meadow View Homes, saying he disagreed with developing open space in the hills instead of building inwards.

The ledger #️⃣

$487

Estimated amount per active and registered Montana voter that will have been spent by Election Day in the high-profile U.S. Senate race between Sen. Jon Tester and Republican challenger Tim Sheey, according to the Associated Press. Total spending is expected to exceed $315 million, a record for a congressional race on a per-voter basis, the AP reports. “You can’t stand to even turn on TV,” former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot told the outlet.

The week ahead 🗓️

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5. If you’re not one of the more than 300,000 Montanans who have already voted absentee, you can vote in person at a polling place from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m on Election Day. If you received an absentee ballot and haven’t returned it yet, drop it off at the 24/7 drop box at the Elections Center at 140 N. Russell.
On Nov. 6 at 10 a.m., the Missoula City Council holds a special meeting to consider spending up to $340,000 in Open Space Bond funds toward a 1,667 conservation easement on the Indreland Ranch northwest of the city.