$11.4M hotel, restaurant under construction in Polson, with help from tax credits

POLSON A new $11.4 million Red Lion hotel is under construction in Polson, and will have an attached conference center and a MacKenzie River Pizza Co. grill and pub.

The development was financed with help from new market tax credits provided by the Montana Community Development Corp., headquartered in Missoula.

This project will create 42 new full-time jobs in Polson, said Melanie Calahan, director of marketing for the MTCDC. In addition to jobs, the conference space and rooms give Polson more resources for attracting regional events, which will bring more economic activity into the community.

The three-story, 80-room hotel is the fourth such project that the nonprofit organization has helped finance in western Montana, along with the Mission Valley Aquatics Center, which is just down the street from the new Red Lion, and both the Poverello Center and the Garlington, Lohn & Robinson office building in Missoula.

The total amount of new market tax credits provided for those four projects is $37.2 million, which is a sizable portion of the $185 million that the community development corporation has provided for projects in Montana since 2009.

All of these projects make an impact on low-income people and/or places, whether thats providing jobs or emergency homeless shelter, Calahan said. The NMTC program also redirects mainstream financial support to Montana (and Idaho) that wouldnt have made it here otherwise, and it leads to significant change that wouldnt have happened otherwise.

Dave Glaser, president of the MTCDC, said the developers of the new hotel/restaurant in Polson approached him about a year ago.

New market tax credits provide a subsidy to projects that are in low-income areas to provide jobs and economic vitality, he said. Sitting down with the developers, we learned that Polson in particular is trying to build up their year-round tourist visitation. A stand-alone hotel by itself isnt enough to make that attractive, and by putting in a restaurant and conference center it achieves those goals.

Polson now has received more new markets tax credit from MTCDC than any other small town in Montana and Idaho.

Rick Orizotti, who is developing the hotel along with Herb Leuprecht, said that the new hotel is expected to be completed in June.

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$11.4M hotel, restaurant under construction in Polson, with help from tax credits