MISSOULA — The City of Missoula is moving forward with its plans to redevelop city-owned land into developments that meet the community's needs, specifically affordable housing.
A task force comprising both the city and private industry — such as the Missoula Economic Partnership — has formed to advance the city’s goals of redeveloping its properties, with a key effort underway at the Riverfront Triangle property.
While there may be progress that is being made, city officials say that in order to complete some of its redevelopment goals, everything that they hope for in a redevelopment may not be entirely feasible.
The city stated that often, a developer will be contracted out to redevelop a property, but the investment that they would have to privately make, without money from the city, is too expensive. On top of this, the state of the economy is also a looming worry for the city when it comes to completing its redevelopment goals.
“I'm very concerned about Canadian lumber. I lived it when I was the executive director of Homeward and had a project under construction and then the lumber package increased by 20 percent. And ultimately, it's like, where do you find that money? And that is a risk that developers live with every single day,” said Missoula Mayor Andrea Davis
While the city may be concerned about economic uncertainty, they say that they will continue to work with their private partners to find the best way forward for redeveloping some of the city’s properties, with the goal of finding a balance between delivering community needs and the limitations that developers have.
Additional information about the initiative can be found here.
