Ed Kemmick/Last Best News
Kelly McCarthy, development director for the Billings Industrial Revitalization District, stands in a lot across from MetraPark where developers are proposing to build a Splish Splash Car Wash.
Redevelopment of an industrial area of Billings that sits astride some of the most heavily traveled roads in the state is scheduled to start this spring.
The Exposition Gateway, as it is known, takes in an area bounded by First and Sixth avenues north, MetraPark and North 10th Street. A redevelopment plan for the Exposition Gateway aptly describes it as “the ragged edge of the downtown.”
The area has long been home to trucking companies, manufacturers and other industrial uses. There are few curbs, gutters and sidewalks, and many of the roads are crumbling. Some properties are not served by sanitary sewers, and inadequate storm water systems are easily overwhelmed by heavy rains, resulting in frequent flooding.
A big step in the redevelopment of the area is to be taken next month, when the Billings City Council is scheduled to consider a petition to annex 10 acres within the Exposition Gateway.
Six property owners who control those 10 acres, all of them in the county but surrounded by the city of Billings, have requested annexation. Assuming the council approves the petition—it is to be presented on Jan. 12, then voted on after a public hearing on Jan. 26—a $3 million project to make basic infrastructure improvements next year can get started this spring.
The whole project could be completed by next fall, said Kelly McCarthy, development director for the Billings Industrial Revitalization District.
One business is already thinking of locating in the Exposition Gateway because of the planned improvements.
The prospect of a car wash wouldn’t normally be terribly exciting, but plans submitted by Splish Splash Car Wash, of Colorado, show a large, colorful building, a landscaped walkway and row upon row of vacuuming stations. The whole thing looks more like an amusement park than a car wash.
Splish Splash is proposing to build the business on vacant land owned by the Yegen family on the north side of Fourth Avenue North between North Seventh Street and Exposition Drive, just across from the main entrance to MetraPark. That property is part of the 10 acres that will be considered for annexation.
McCarthy said Splish Splash representatives have already presented their project to city staff and to BIRD members, and the company is prepared to start building this spring.
The deal has not been inked yet, but it appears that it will be the first project to get off the ground in the Exposition Gateway. McCarthy said the owners of Splish Splash are somewhat apprehensive about having the first project in the area, but as he told them, “I don’t anticipate they’re going to be lonely for long.”
In conversations with a representative of the company, McCarthy added, “When I described the traffic counts to him, his eyes kind of lit up.”
A car wash similar to this Splish Splash Car Wash in Colorado is being proposed for the area known as the Exposition Gateway.
According to the Planning Department, the intersection of nearby Airport Road and Main Street (which becomes Exposition Drive in front of MetraPark), sees about 51,000 vehicles a day, while 44,000 vehicles are seen at Sixth and Main.
Now that redevelopment plans are moving forward for the Exposition Gateway, McCarthy said, his office fields inquiries about other possible projects almost on a daily basis.
“And I’m sure landowners have had plenty of conversations themselves,” he said.
The work that will begin this spring will add curbs, gutters and sidewalks to the area, extend sewer lines to properties without them, rebuild and repave Ninth and 10th streets and Second and Third avenues, and make improvements to the storm water system.
Sanderson Stewart, a Billings engineering firm, is designing the project, which has an estimated price tag of $3.1 million. The city Public Works Department is contributing $600,000 and McCarthy said Yellowstone County has made a commitment to kick in $250,000. The design work, which cost $250,000, was paid for out of tax increment financing funds.
The remaining $2 million would be bonded, then paid off with money from the tax increment fund. During the life of a tax increment district, property taxes collected within the district are used to make improvements in the area, the hope being that redevelopment will eventually result in a much higher tax base.
Chris Hertz, a city engineer working on the project, said the Exposition Gateway is dotted with storm water inlets, but many of them are clogged or buried, and some of the drainage lines have collapsed.
Some additional relief from flooding problems in the area will be provided by an $11 million project, which began this summer and should wrap up next year, to double the capacity of storm sewers that drain a huge swath of central Billings and run down North 15th Street before flowing south and east to the Yellowstone River.
That will take some of the pressure off the storm water systems in the Exposition Gateway, Hertz said. Another partial solution could involve construction of a detention pond on county property inside MetraPark.
Hertz said things should move quickly after the annexation is dealt with in January.
“Everything could be done this coming year,” he said. “But everything would have to go real smooth for us.”
