Since Glacier High School opened three years ago, it has been selected to host the Northwestern A divisional basketball tournament each year. It is precisely the kind of event that hoteliers and the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce hope to encourage through a proposed Tourism Business Improvement District.
With carloads of families and fans arriving in Kalispell for the tournament each February, local businesses look to the tournament as an economic boon during a time of late-winter drudgery. This year’s tournament, which features boys and girls teams from five area Class A schools, is scheduled for Feb. 25-27 at Glacier High School.
“This is a really great thing for this time of year,” said Joe Unterreiner, president of the chamber of commerce. “These are really some slow months in the Kalispell area as well as everywhere in the state.”
Unterreiner said regional and state athletic events “really benefit everybody” in a community, by filling hotel rooms, sending shoppers to local stores and keeping restaurants busy. With the proposed TBID, Unterreiner said the city would have a tool to better market Kalispell, and thus bring more large events to town.
With a TBID, hotels within the district charge an additional room tax to raise money to be used specifically for marketing and promoting Kalispell. The TBID has garnered the requisite number of hotelier petition signatures and is now under review by the city. The Kalispell City Council must approve it.
“It’s one of the reasons that hoteliers are interested in doing a TBID,” Unterreiner said of attracting events.
Events cover a wide range, from business conferences to high school sports tournaments. Kalispell, tucked away more than 100 miles off of Interstate 90, has geographical disadvantages when bidding for events. But a marketing fund like the TBID, its supporters feel, could overcome some of those disadvantages by advertising Northwest Montana’s many attributes.
When the $35 million Glacier High School was built, great care was taken to make it one of the nicest high schools in the state, a vision that included a first-class sports facility – weight room, gymnasium and the rest.
The gymnasium has proven to be a desirable location for a variety of events, including wrestling, basketball and an upcoming martial arts tournament. It seats 2,750, said Glacier Activities Director Mark Dennehy, which is comparable to cross-town Flathead High School. Glacier’s facility, however, can accommodate more than 3,000 with people standing on the second-story circular track.
Some Class AA gymnasiums and events centers, like the Montana ExpoPark in Great Falls and the MetraPark in Billings, hold far more spectators. Dennehy said to be eligible to host a Class AA state tournament for both genders, a facility must hold at least 5,000 people.
Under the tournament’s format, each of the five conference teams takes turns serving as the host school for the year. The schools can host the tournament at their school or choose another location. Bigfork, when it was still Class A, chose to hold the tourney at Glacier in 2008, Polson selected Glacier last year and Libby did so this year.
With Bigfork back in Class B, Northwestern A now consists of Libby, Polson, Columbia Falls, Whitefish and Ronan.
Dennehy said officials at Bigfork, Polson and Libby felt Glacier’s facility could better accommodate the traffic and busy schedule of the three-day tournament. And the city of Kalispell, as the hub of the valley, is a centralized location with plenty of lodging, dining and shopping opportunities. As Unterreiner points out, many players and their families go shopping in between games.
And while some events such as business conferences cater to a specific demographic, sports tournaments run the gamut, which is beneficial for many different types of businesses, Unterreiner said.
“Sports tournaments are a benefit across all of the hotel categories,” he said. “They stay in your mix of hotels: large, small and more modest price points.”
Dennehy said he believes Whitefish, Columbia Falls and Ronan likely will choose to host the tournament at their home facilities. But he feels the foundation has been laid for Glacier High School serving as an events center for Northwest Montana, a role that could extend beyond the Northwestern A divisional tournament.
Kalispell hosted its first-ever Class AA and B state track meet last spring, which Dennehy and other school officials hope is a sign of things to come. But Dennehy acknowledges the difficulties of Kalispell’s location off of a major interstate.
“Geography hurts us,” Dennehy said. “We could have one of the best facilities in the state of Montana, but people think it’s going a long, long ways to get to Kalispell.”
Glacier High School, Dennehy said, has nice locker rooms, concessions and a commons area, which helps with events. And, he said, the school district’s staff does a good job. During the divisional basketball tournament, at any given time, there are 20 to 25 staff members working.
“We enjoy hosting tournaments here at Glacier High,” Dennehy said. “We have a great, great staff to help out in making the tournament run smoothly.”