With a deadline to retire one of the city's urban renewal districts set, the Missoula Redevelopment Agency plans to continue investing in public infrastructure to encourage future infill.
MRA's Board of Commissioners recently approved a roughly $1 million investment to place sidewalks and new water mains along Montana Street. The project marks a collaboration between MRA and Public Works, which will manage the project and seek a 2.5% reimbursement from MRA for its work.
“A couple of years ago, we started moving toward working with Public Works and Mobility to make our process of building water mains and sidewalk extensions more efficient,” said Jil Dunn, a project manager with MRA. “We asked them to make their priorities our priorities, which impacts their workload.”
While the project is ready to go, inflationary increases have added roughly $300,000 in costs. MRA will pay for most of the project using tax increment financing from Urban Renewal District II and use contingency funds to cover the cost overrun.
Andy Schultz with Public Works said this particular project faced unique challenges, which led in part to the cost increase.
“We missed the mark a little,” he said. “We don't have as much data on main extension projects versus main replacement projects. We underestimated what the cost was. We came up with those numbers three years ago. We've seen a pretty significant increase in construction.”
With City Council approval, MRA, two years ago, adopted a plan to sunset URD II by 2031. To do so, it created a list of project priorities it plans to fund before that date, including lighting the full length of the Bitterroot Branch Trail, redeveloping the Sleepy Inn property, stabilizing portions of the Clark Fork River and converting the railroad trestle over the river to pedestrian use.
The list also included adding sidewalks and replacing water mains within the district to ensure it continues to see infill development after the district sets. The Montana Street project meets those goals, MRA said.
“This water main extension is going to open up the possibility of three new infill developments out there,” said MRA Director Ellen Buchanan. “We're trying to incentivize development there. This is a catalyst for some infill development.”
Schultz added, “There's a development forthcoming, so we've been coordinating with that developer. This project is coming at the right time.”
