Riverfront Triangle: What About the Rest?
A thought for sparking development through creative competition.
The City of Missoula recently announced the revival of the 2019 plan for a hotel and event center on a parcel within the Riverfront Triangle development area. Fingers crossed that the fourth time is the charm. But even if built, that’s only one corner of the large blight.
How do we finish the rest?
Hold a Competition
Get architects and in turn developers excited to build something for the Missoula community.
Goal
To provoke the constructing of a beautiful and interesting piece of architecture that’ll be enjoyed by locals, while sparking curiosity from tourists. We live in it and others flock to see.
What Location?
The Riverfront Triangle is made up of a series of blighted lots sandwiched between the river, St.Pat’s hospital, and downtown. The city owned lot closest to the Orange St. Bridge will once again be a hotel and event center (fingers crossed). The funky Front St. shortcut is already zoned to disappear, which will allow for a better development lot and less chaos in front of the hospital.
How It Could Be Done
Missoula in partnership with the property owners puts out the call for designs. Architectural competitions can be handled in a number of ways, such as the general press or via global online forums. Buildner recently sponsored a Denver call for entries around housing.
Spark interest in Missoula through creative thinking.
Any number of ideas could be the right approach for the triangle.
Where The City Can Help
Thankfully there was recent news coming out of city hall asking the question of “why our vacant city own properties haven’t been developed?” That has always been the intended goal – a public / private partnership to bring more housing and businesses to the community.
The city could help in a number of ways:
1. Architectural Competition
2. Reduce Demands for the Properties
3. Demolish Existing Blight
These suggestions could help provoke development for the entire Riverfront Triangle. And something as simple as demolishing the existing blighted structures would help with the appearance of downtown in the meantime. Everyone knows that driving into downtown from the west isn’t Missoula putting its best foot forward. A sea of grass would be better than crumbling buildings.
Moving Forward
There has been some form of a plan for a long time and we now should really think about kicking it into high gear. Progress over perfection for the Riverfront Triangle.
All Rights Reserved © 2025
Just trying to make civic engagement more fun.