Missoula’s 45-acre Sawmill site moving forward

City planners and investors hope that a sale planned for next month of Missoula’s 45-acre Sawmill site http://oldsawmilldistrict.com/ will catalyze a long-snarled urban renewal project that’s been more than eight years in the making.

"We’re all very encouraged by the progress," says developer Ed Wetherbee from the privately-owned Millsite Revitalization Project.

In 2005, MRP signed a buy-sell agreement with the F. Morris and Helen Silver Foundation, which currently owns the land. Since then, the developer has aimed to transform a portion of the blighted property into residential housing, office and retail space. A prerequisite for development was ridding the property of contamination that lingered from former Champion International Sawmill operations.

by Jessica Mayrer

Full Story: http://missoulanews.bigskypress.com/missoula/growth/Content?oid=1675657

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As Millsite Revitalization Project, we have been working on this "Sawmill" or "Champion Millsite" project over 8 years now. I would like to add-clarify that a good portion of the funding discussion is related to the development of the 14 acres of new riverfront public park land that is being given to the city in exchange, and the RR trestle which is needed for safe and legal access to the stadium and the throughway of Wyoming street to relieve traffic on other neighborhood roads. Of the "city" funds invested thus far, little more than one-third is from bonds financed years ago from new tax revenue in URDII, and most of the rest is all funds from EPA, ARRA or CTEP grants…processed through the city but not using city money. The private investment has been leveraged well into other grant funds…our compliments to those involved. Our project established the $1.75M Revolving Loan Fund through a grant from the EPA so those funds can be recycled by the city for future projects as well.

The project development is expected to generate a lot of new tax revenue over the years (some of which needs to be reinvested in infrastructure)…and it will have fixed an abandoned blighted industrial environmental problem in the heart of Missoula.

The next era is projected to generate well over $100m of construction, over 2,000 job-years, and reductions in carbon emissions and fuel consumption by more efficient traffic flows.

This is an exciting milestone that will help the community in many ways over time. Follow us and get more at http://www.OldSawmillDistrict.com.

Old Sawmill District…..New Neighborhood, Historic Heart. We hope to see construction activity next spring."

-Ed Wetherbee, MRP