The Missoula City Council granted a preliminary demolition permit to remove the Old Post Hospital in the Fort Missoula Historic District on Wednesday afternoon, but the decision still leaves some uncertainty for the building.
The council voted 7-1 to reverse the Missoula Historic Preservation Commission’s original denial of the permit following a four-hour meeting with oral arguments from the landowners, FAE-Wolf, and city’s officials.
The preliminary permit opens the door to demolishing the building, but is not the final act in the process.
The landowners must submit a redevelopment plan for the site before it can remove the building. One of the landowners, Ken Wolf, told the Missoulian there is a possibility in keeping the hospital despite obtaining the permit.
The council acted in a narrow decision space on whether the commission made an error when denying the permit in March, which centered on how the private landowners maintained the 113-year-old structure.
On Wednesday, councilors said the owners can not be held liable for vandalism and past decades of building deterioration, but pleaded with the developer to find some way to keep the building.
“We would like to see some middle ground figured out out there, and we would like to see you go back,” said Ward 4 city councilor Amber Sherrill. “We don’t want the hospital demolished, and I understand the conundrum that you are in financially with this … I urge you to consider what the community would like to see out there with that piece of history.”
A long process
The Old Post Hospital, first built by the U.S. Army in 1911, was closed in 1947 and sold as surplus. The land exchanged hands several times before the Western Montana Mental Health Clinic listed the property in 2017.
Wolf said his goal was to purchase and restore the building, but found out after buying it that the structure needed a costly restoration that was economically infeasible without some form of revenue.
“My intention was to buy the building and rehabilitate it as a standalone as an office building,” Wolf said at Wednesday’s meeting. “When we got into it, and we saw how much it would cost to rehabilitate it, it made no economic sense.”
Wolf and other developers proposed building residential and commercial buildings adjacent to the hospital, using the revenue to restore the hospital.
That proposal met stiff resistance from members of the public, who said the character of Fort Missoula would be changed with the project.
The Historic Preservation Commission denied the proposal in 2023 and the Missoula City Council upheld the decision in 2024, citing an incompatibility with the rest of the historic district.
The owners of the hospital then applied for a demolition permit in 2024, arguing the hospital would be economically infeasible to restore after the development plans were denied. The demolition permit was ultimately denied by the Historic Preservation Commission in March.
“Generally this application checks the boxes, however I just do not feel that the evidence is sufficient, and I do not feel it is competent or credible,” Historic Preservation Commission Vice Chair Crystal Herzog said during the March meeting.
Back and forth
By bringing the most recent appeal to the Missoula City Council, Ken Wolf said he disputed the Historic Preservation Commission’s belief that the landowners of the hospital caused the hospital to deteriorate.
He said at Wednesday’s hearing most of the building had been sealed off for decades and a fire in the attic in the 1960s caused widespread damage to the structure.
“(The commission argues) most of the decay, damage and deterioration that has caused the building to fall into a state of disrepair, with deterioration of the exterior, architectural features and interior that requires an investment of $10 million has taken place since 2019 as of FAE’s doing,” Wolf said.
He said as a private property owner, he has paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes while the building has sat unused.
The Missoula Historic Preservation officer and a city attorney representing the Historic Preservation Commission said the commission was accurate in denying the permit because the landowners had taken minimal action to maintain the property.
Historic Preservation Officer Elizabeth Johnson said the lack of effort to repair the roof and turning off the building’s heating system contributed to a more rapid deterioration.
“The commission found there to be evidence of self-created hardship because of inadequate maintenance of the Old Post Hospital,” Johnson said.
Johnson also contended the landowners could have found ways to rehabilitate the hospital without new developments, like by partnering with a nonprofit or seeking grants and state tax credits.
On a broader note, Wolf extensively criticized the city’s permit review process after he said he discovered the Old Post Hospital was not listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Because of the lack of listing, Wolf argued the entire process was unnecessary and claimed it was used to keep the hospital from being demolished.
“The only way any of this this makes sense, and this actually goes back to the original development plan, is there are forces within the city and the public who do not want new development and at the same time do not want the hospital demolished,” Wolf said.
After Wolf’s claim, City Attorney for Civil Services Tim DeFors objected to the information and told the council that because the information was not included in the appeal documents, the council should not consider it.
“Generally in an appeal, parties cannot asset new substantial arguments that were not considered alone, so over here we will not be addressing those arguments, because those are outside of the scope,” DeFors said.
Public commenters at the meeting generally opposed the demolition of the hospital, arguing concerns over development in the area that might alter the character of Fort Missoula and damage the environment.
Council speaks out
Several councilors said at the end of the meeting that they would like to see the hospital remain standing for future generations, but stressed the city cannot over-regulate private property.
City Council Vice President Mirtha Becerra said the public benefit of the historic building must be recognized, but voted to grant the permit because of issues with the commission’s original denial.
“We want to have our cake and eat it, too,” Becerra said. “… I think that there is a possibility for doing something differently than what the Historic Preservation Commission recommended.”
Ward 6 Councilor Kristen Jordan said she was unsure how she would vote after receiving the back and forth information, but found that the Historic Preservation Commission had made errors in its decision.
“I do feel potentially that the decision was made in error, but I do not want to see the Old Post Hospital demolished,” Jordan, who ended up voting to approve the permit, said.
Ward 6 Councilor Sandra Vasecka said she believed the commission made an error by considering the damages by the neglect of the owner despite decades of damage to the structure.
Ward 4 Councilor Mike Nugent said he would like to see the Old Post Hospital remain, yet he brought concerns over what would happen if the council denied the appeal and left the landowners in a state of limbo.
Ward 5 Councilor Bob Campbell said the developers cannot be responsible for outside actors like vandals who damaged the building. He recalled times when City Hall would be vandalized and said punishing the private property owners would be a double standard.
Ward 3 Councilor Daniel Carlino, who voted against granting the permit, said he believes the site is a strong community asset and needs protection.
“Clearly this is a really important site for the community with the access to nature and the history that it has there,” Carlino said. “With everything that we reviewed today, I do not think we pinpointed where the Historic Preservation Commission made an error.”
What’s next?
With the permit effectively approved, FAE-Wolf and Historic Preservation Officer Johnson will sit down within the next 30 days to go over the next steps for a development plan.
The owners of the property must release the plan for public comment and it will also be reviewed administratively by the Missoula Historic Preservation officer.
In the past, the Historic Preservation Commission would decide on the permit, but a law passed by the state Legislature in 2025 removed the authority of local historic commissions to grant permits.
Wolf told the Missoulian in a joint statement with his son and business partner, Max Wolf, that there is a chance the Old Post Hospital building could still survive.
“We are happy that the city council reversed the decision of the Historic Preservation Commission, but we still do not want to discount the possibility of doing something with the hospital,” the joint statement said.
Missoula City Council will next meet on Sept. 22.
Griffen Smith is the local government reporter for the Missoulian.
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