Center would be downtown diamond

A showplace for art in the Flathead Valley and a centerpiece for downtown Kalispell took a big step forward Tuesday when the owners of the downtown mall property donated land for a new 1,300-seat theater.

The Glacier Performing Arts Center would offer a venue for a wide variety of cultural events such as concerts, traveling theater shows, and festivals which until now have largely bypassed the Flathead.

Some kind of public theater in the Kalispell area has been a shared dream for many arts groups for more than 20 years, especially as Bigfork and Whitefish both developed their own performing arts centers, which have proved to be valuable partners in creating a vibrant economy.

Indeed, the artistic benefits and economic benefits will both be enormous for our growing community. Everyone has known for years that downtown Kalispell needs to create magnets to bring a steady flow of people into the area. This project, if it is carried through to fruition, will not only help the downtown mall, but all of downtown, to remain viable.

Hats off to Red Lion Hotels and its mall partner, GVD Commercial Properties, for donating the land north of the downtown railroad track for this new facility. Red Lion, formerly WestCoast and Cavanaugh's, has owned the property for several years in anticipation of expanding the mall. However, the difficulty of removing the railroad track stymied that project, and Red Lion recognized that improving the area as a whole was the next best thing.

In fact, it may prove to be the very best thing of all.

The many volunteers who have been pushing forward the Glacier Performing Arts Center proposal will now have until April 2007 to begin construction at the site.

Although that date is not far away, everyone agrees that most of the groundwork has already been done by the board, and now it's just a matter of switching gears into fund-raising mode.

The community will hear reports in the coming weeks on what kind of facility will be built, as well as estimated costs and the timetable for fund-raising. It will then be necessary for all of us who envision a better future for the Flathead to work together to make the dream a reality.