City kicks of planning process for Roseburg, 900 acres north of Broadway

Martin Kidston

(Missoula Current) Work to envision the future of a large but underutilized swath of Missoula began in earnest this week and will likely continue for the next several months as it marches toward a final master plan.

The project, spearheaded by GGLO and a number of other partners, looks to cover everything from transportation needs to infrastructure.

“We'll be looking at transportation improvements, market conditions, tax increment generation, infrastructure and overall development and implementation strategies,” said Josiah Brown, an urban design with GGLO. “We have a number of goals for this project. We want to understand what the community wants to see here including the landowners, stakeholders and the broader community.”

The area, known as the North Reserve-Scott Street Urban Renewal District, spans roughly 900 acres between Interstate 90 and West Broadway. The area was initially planned more than a decade ago, but a number of conditions have change, including the closure of the former Roseburg plant.

That parcel alone includes 235 acres, a portion of which was recently purchased by Story House Montana, which is creating a new film and production campus.

“This is a gem of a site,” said Mark Sindell with GGLO. “A strong partnership and working closely with Roseburg and Story House will be important, and we have a good beginning to that. Transitions, edges, connectivity and placemaking will be really important components to this process to maximize the immense opportunity this represents. It will be important for us to think through this holistically.”

The initial master plan divided the 900-acre district into three broad categories with residential development near Scott Street, commercial toward Reserve Street and industry between the two.

Portions of that initial plan have come to fruition with a new wave of residential development unfolding along Scott Street. With the Roseburg plant now closed, portions of that property could also be reimagined in partnership with the property owners.

“The master plan will be informed by stakeholder input, market demands and realities, and infrastructure needs. All those things work together to create a feasible master plan,” said Brown. “When you look at the study area, you can see it's made up of a lot of different owners, so there's a lot of stakeholders.”

Upon the request of Roseburg, the City Council last year annexed roughly 93 acres into the city. Annexation of the remaining 140 acres is pending the outcome of the new master plan.

“Part of this project is the annexation this master plan sets us up for,” said Brown. “One annexation was completed earlier this year. At the conclusion of this project, there are plans for the second annexation of the remaining property into the city.”

The transportation system and preferred land-use types will be identified in the planning process.

“We hope to cast a vision for this area for what it can become, more than what it is,” said Sindell.