Architects, committee plan new Missoula College; school to help anchor East Broadway corridor

A seven-acre patch of undeveloped ground on East Broadway will undergo a transformation over the next few years as Missoula College prepares to lay claim to its new location.

But before ground is broken sometime in late 2014, the architects at StudioFORMA will set out to design a new building that adheres to state-mandated energy standards, and to complete an environment assessment to ensure impacts to the Clark Fork River are negligible.

A building committee at Missoula College also will work to identify the schools needs during the projects first phase of development. Yet if all goes as planned, architects believe the new building will enhance the river corridor and set a rejuvenating tone for Missoulas eastern edge.

That whole stretch of the river is rather unkempt and ragged, and it would be cleaned up tremendously, becoming much more of a public space, said StudioFORMA architect Mark Headley. We envision lots of public seating spaces with public areas on the south side of the building, looking over the river.

Headley will start the design from a clean slate and fewer restrictions than he would have faced if Missoula College had been constructed on the University of Montanas South Campus. Gone are campus regulations mandating a renaissance revival design and limitations on height.

While design work will likely take a year given the projects size, Headley said, the initial phase calls for a four-story building with a basement. The project will be engineered with upward expansion in mind, as city code currently allows for eight stories.

Well list what will be built in this first phase and define what would be built in a second or even third phase, so we can plan it on the site and incorporate it into the building design, Headley said. Missoula College is an enormously popular and successful program, and theres no indication that will change.

Headley expects the schematic work to wrap up by Jan. 15. At the same time, National Environmental Policy Act specialist Stephanie Lauer with JBR a Missoula firm will work through an environmental assessment with both the universitys and the citys oversight.

The assessment will include a traffic study and a riparian management plan for the Clark Fork River. The Montana Department of Transportation also will be involved, given the potential impacts to East Broadway and Highway 200.

At the end of that phase, around Jan. 15 or so, well have an early building design and all the EA work done, Headley said. A building that big will take most of 2014 to develop. Id expect the project to go to bid and ground to be broken in the latter part of 2014.

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Architects, committee plan new Missoula College; school to help anchor East Broadway corridor