After a nearly 100-year-old lumber mill closed on Missoula’s Northside in the mid-1990s, officials didn’t see the contaminated land ever becoming housing.
But its neighbors did.
Almost three decades later, their vision for the area is coming to fruition with the construction of 89 homes and more than 200 apartments as part of the Scott Street-Ravara housing development.
“We are investing in our community and the people who live and work here,” Mayor Andrea Davis said at the project’s groundbreaking earlier this month. “There will be construction for a while, but we will see a vibrant community here.”
The Scott Street-Ravara development is located on nine acres of the former White Pine and Sash mill site, adjacent to Scott Street and the railroad tracks. A three-acre community land trust will include 46 income-qualified and 43 market-rate condos and townhomes. Construction of 220 to 225 apartments and 35,000 square feet of commercial space on the other six acres will follow.
The income-qualified units will be sold to buyers earning less than 120% of the area median income, which is $83,040 and below for a two-person household.
The other for-sale units should be available for a lower price because they are on a land trust, meaning the homebuyer purchases the home and leases the land from the North Missoula Community Development Corporation. When they’re ready to move, the homeowner agrees to resell at a restricted price to keep it affordable.
“We’re serving not only the first buyers but serving generations of buyers and homeowners,” Brittany Palmer, NMCDC executive director, said at the groundbreaking.
The long and winding effort to transform part of the abandoned and contaminated industrial site into a housing development began 30 years ago when the White Pine and Sash mill was listed as a state Superfund site, the Montana Free Press reports.
The mill, which closed in 1996, processed lumber and treated wood, leaving contaminates in the soil and groundwater, according to the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. In 2014, the DEQ initially proposed lower cleanup requirements on the 19 vacant acres, allowing for future commercial or light industrial use on the site. Heidi West, a neighborhood resident and former city council member, helped spearhead an effort to clean the site to residential standards.
Northsiders rallied behind the cause, and the city council passed a resolution requesting DEQ reconsider its proposal, the Missoulian reported at the time. City zoning allowed for residential use and a mixed-use development on the site fell in line with the neighborhood plan published in the early 2000s, the resolution noted. In 2016, DEQ ordered residential-level cleanup on about 10 of the 19 acres.
“I’m grateful for everyone who believed this was possible,” West said at the groundbreaking. “We got a residential cleanup, making this possible today.”
Building off the neighborhood plan, the city created an urban renewal district in 2015 to help finance Northside development using tax increment financing. As improvements are made in the district and property taxes go up, the difference in tax revenue is collected in a fund for further investment in the district.
In 2020, the city used $6.6 million in tax increment financing to purchase the 19 acres of the vacant former White Pine and Sash site. The Missoula Redevelopment Agency, an agency of the city that works to revitalize urban renewal districts, solicited developer proposals for the site and partnered with Ravara Development in early 2021.
Ravara, a subsidiary of Goodworks Ventures, was willing to partner with the city to help address the need for housing, said Kiah Hochstetler, Goodworks development partner.
As time went on, the project’s main challenge shifted from planning the development to contending with skyrocketing construction prices and interest rates, Hochstetler said.
The last legislative session provided “accelerant” to move the project forward with the passage of House Bill 819, he said. The bill created the Montana Housing Infrastructure Revolving Bond Program, which allows the state Board of Investments to purchase public infrastructure bonds at a low rate.
In February, Missoula received approval for a $2.8 million low-interest loan through the new program to help pay for the Scott Street-Ravara project’s streets, sidewalks and utility extensions. First Security Bank offered to purchase the rest of the bonds needed for the city to fund the project, said Annie Gorski, Missoula Redevelopment Agency deputy director.
On March 4, the city council approved the city’s intent to bond up to $9.8 million in tax increment financing money, including $6.2 million for infrastructure and $3.25 million to help subsidize income-restricted properties, plus the costs of financing.
The project will not raise taxes for Missoulians, Gorski said. Once built, tax revenue from the new homes and development on the site, as well as growth throughout the urban renewal district, will pay back the bonds, she said.
“In order to work towards the city’s goals around affordability, we need to participate in projects like this so middle-income Missoulians can afford homeownership and build equity,” Gorski said.
To afford a median-priced home in Missoula, buyers need to earn almost $200,000 annually or around 200% of the area median income, Gorski said.
“We’re seeing more and more working people, Missoulians, having to live outside the community in which they work,” she said. “This is one way people working in our community can live here and purchase a home.”
The North Missoula Community Development Corporation has been involved in planning the site’s future for years. Bob Oaks, NMCDC founder, was on a citizen advisory committee after the land was declared a Superfund site in 1994, he said during the groundbreaking. Studies showed it was safe to live in the neighborhood and people wanted to, but it took effort to get the necessary cleanup completed, he said.
“I’m really so delighted the land trust can be involved,” Oaks said. “It’s been a long haul, but it’s been a dream of mine to have community land trust housing here.”
Infrastructure construction — including extending Shakespeare, Charlo and Palmer streets, building out utilities and adding sidewalks, trees and lighting — began this week.
Work on the buildings should start in early summer, with the first homes ideally for sale in May 2025, Hochstetler said. Income-qualified and market-rate units will be built at the same time. The condos will be studios, with one and two bedrooms, and the townhomes will have three or four bedrooms. People can support the housing project by purchasing the market-rate units to help fund development, he said.
Crews will likely break ground on the apartments and commercial development sometime next spring, Hochstetler said. The commercial area is required to include a daycare, and Ravara is working with a potential neighborhood grocery tenant, he said. The developer is looking to bring in a restaurant, coffee shop, salon or similar neighborhood business, Hochstetler said.
“Seeing it actually come together and be real, it is a massive achievement,” he said. “There’s plenty of work left to be done, so it’s surreal in that it’s more of a milestone than a finish line.”
The city has planned several transportation projects on the Northside to support the neighborhood’s growth, Gorski said. The pedestrian bridge crossing the railroad tracks at Grand Street is under renovation, a complete streets project along Turner, Worden and North Fifth streets begins this spring, and improvements along Scott Street are in design.
Longer-term projects include additional north/south connectivity across the railroad tracks and a new interchange, Gorski said.
“We’re looking not at next year but 10, 20 years in the future, continuing to build out more connectivity to serve the growth of this part of Missoula,” she said.
