Nail pounding town

Large scale construction jobs are making sizeable bumps and bulges in West Yellowstone's current economic profile, and dominating the local landscape and viewscapes all over town.

€ Of perhaps most interest to local residents, the Povah Center is once again a work in progress. Early in October the CS Construction crew was awaiting the immediate arrival of the building's "steel package" - the columns and beams designed to support the floor and roof systems.

The "package" ended up being several weeks late. The most credible explanation is that the company erecting the new Bozeman Lowe's Home Improvement store used its greater economic might to "cut in line" ahead of the West Yellowstone delivery.

The Povah Center's towers and beams have now finally arrived on site and work has begun again.

Two days ago Chip Smith was asked if he was seriously behind schedule.

"What I am," Smith replied, "is seriously annoyed that it took so long for the material to get here."

Nonetheless Smith is hopeful that the snow will hold off long enough to allow workers to get the steel up, and the floor in place.

"We can deal with the cold," he says of himself and his employees, " but we don't want to be shoveling snow out of the basement every morning."

€ The enormous Trendwest Resorts Time Share project on Grey Wolf Avenue, east of Hibernation Station, continues to spread and develop. In the end there will be close to 120 units, from studios to three bedroom luxury suites. West Yellowstone Building Inspector Bill Fogarty says that as far as he knows, the project is on schedule for an opening in the fall of 2007. Attempts to reach the project manager to verify this were not successful.

€ Yellowstone Trails Condominiums will one day occupy the area south of the Madison Apartments on North Electric Street. An excavation was completed several weeks ago, but things have been quiet since.

Bill Fogarty explains that Yellowstone Trails Condominiums will include a total of four 12-plexes. Each individual structure will be three stories with four units per floor. The project also provides for underground parking.

It is the underground garage that has made some re-engineering necessary, Fogarty notes.

"We need to have everything worked out before anyone starts putting mud (concrete) in the ground," he said.

The project is the property of CM Group of Big Sky. They have an office in the Madison Crossing Building.

€ Ron Jensen, of Texas, already the owner of the Grey Wolf Inn and the Stagecoach Inn, is presently building a third motel, the Yellowstone Express, to the east of the West Yellowstone Post Office.

"There were some issues that needed to be worked out with the architects and engineers," Fogarty said, "and revised plans were required."

Now, however, things are underway; foundation walls have been poured, and Fogarty believes, work is scheduled to go on through the winter, to be ready for a spring opening.

Fogarty points out that there are also a number of smaller projects in various stages of planning or development. These include the expansion of the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center, expansion plans for the IMAX Theater, a proposal to combine the Kelly Inn and Clubhouse Inn with a "water park" connecting the two, and an addition to the Running Bear Restaurant.

The total value of the all the new properties under construction since January, 2006, Fogarty says, is approximately $19 million.

In addition seven new residences have been or are being built. In passing, Fogarty notes that Merrick and Stephanie Young's home, currently going up on Obsidian Avenue, is the first new home to be built in "Old Town"

(i.e. outside the Madison Addition) during the eight years that he's been the town's building inspector.

The 2006 construction season, Fogarty continued, represented something of a flip-flop compared to the previous one. In 2005, new commercial construction was valued at a mere $800,000, and 16 new residences were built.

He also wished to inform News readers that this year's major commercial projects contributed substantial fees to the community. The Trendwest project, for instance, paid nearly $80,000 in sewer and water hookup fees.

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