Florence Building owner needs business partner for rooftop restaurant and bar

It’s not hard to imagine Missoulians flocking to a sunny spot on the roof of the historic Florence Building downtown, sipping a beverage and enjoying 360-degree views of the Clark Fork River and all the surrounding mountains. All it’s going to take is an entrepreneur or two with ambition.

The owners of the building are looking for someone with means and experience to start a rooftop bar/restaurant above the seventh floor, and they're listening to proposals.

The ALPS Corporation, which is headquartered in the Florence and sells professional liability insurance and other services to lawyers, is the ultimate owner of the seven-story building. David Bell, CEO and president of ALPS, said the company plans a massive multimillion dollar remodel of the building at the end of this year, including demolishing and completely remodeling the sixth and seventh floors. That's so ALPS, currently on the second floor, can move in to the new space. They’ll also be adding new locker rooms and shower facilities for tenants of the building as an amenity.

The company is in the planning stages right now, but Bell said that he is looking to partner with a tenant to create something on the roof that would be a benefit to all Missoulians. That’s because, unlike almost every other building downtown, the Florence has the structural integrity to accommodate development on the roof without major upgrades. When it was built in the 1940s, designers had ambitions of eventually adding more floors.

“It’s just lucky for us that we aren’t plagued with what frustrates other ambitions and other places where it’s just not structurally sound, so you’d have to put in a whole new exoskeleton in order support a couple hundred people up there,” Bell said. “So the biggest hurdle is not a hurdle here. And it would be the best view for a restaurant and bar in the western part of the state. This would be a game changer.”

With a ton of development going on in the downtown area and especially on Front Street - more than $100 million in new projects are in the works on East Front, and the $150 million Riverfront Triangle on West Front is in the planning stages - Bell said the timing is right for this opportunity.

The new 150-room Marriott Hotel across the street and the currently-being-remodeled Holiday Inn will both bring in conferences, and the Riverfront Triangle plans call for a huge conference space as well. All those people and the regular tourists to town would probably love a rooftop option, not to mention locals, Bell said. A huge student housing complex just down the street is under construction as well.

“If you were an investor eyeing Missoula, you would say, ‘Let’s look at Stockman Bank, look at the student housing project, look at the Riverfront Triangle, look at the new hotel,” Bell said. “We’re literally sandwiched in between all of that. And when you go to Google Maps, the heart of Missoula is written over the Florence Building. It literally is the heart of Missoula. So if you were going to put capital here, this would seem like the place you would want to do it. You could see a burst of activity here.”

Linda McCarthy, the executive director of the Missoula Downtown Partnership, said the concept would draw more shoppers and tourists to the area.

"Rooftop dining is a new trend all across the country," she said. "We're seeing lots of folks build outdoor dining experiences into projects and retrofitting indoor/outdoor upper level dining experiences."

McCarthy said other property owners have explored the concept in Missoula, including Holiday Inn, the Top Hat Lounge and a proposal that never materialized next to the Union Hall. She said the owner of the Iron Horse restaurant downtown attracted more business by adding an open-air second-story outdoor eating area. In Whitefish, the new Casey's bar has a popular rooftop lounge.

"There's a lot of interest in it," she said. "It offers a special and unique experience. I think our rooftops are under utilized. And anytime folks can look at ways to get the highest and best use out of a property, that's a good thing. When you get up on top of the Florence or any of our taller buildings downtown, the views are incredible."

McCarthy said downtown Missoula is becoming a destination for "foodies" and others who want to know where their food comes from as the farm-to-table movement continues to grow in popularity.

"A rooftop dining experience in downtown Missoula would be interesting and valuable," she said.

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Right now, Bell is listening to all offers.

“I would describe our mind as being totally open,” he said. “We’re in the planning stages, so we need to make a decision if we’re going to do something other than for our own use up here. And certainly, we have an ambition for the community. This would be a place you would want to go for Missoula. And it would be equally cool in the winter.”

Bell said it would be cost-efficient if they knew they had a partner so they could integrate rooftop plans into the remodeling project.

The building has a two main lobby elevators and a freight elevator that go all the way to the seventh floor, but they would have to be extended to go up to the roof. Bell said he isn’t looking for a “first time” entrepreneur, but someone with the “means and experience” to make it happen without any hiccups. He said he’s willing to negotiate on the terms of any deal and that he is “completely open-minded” as to what kind of business he would accept.

“Putting a bar and a kitchen on the roof, it’s been done all over the country and all over the world on top of buildings,” he said. “But it’s not for a first-timer. We need to find a partner who has a track record in the business.”

The usable area on the roof is about 7,000 square feet, and Bell said one potential “cool concept” would be to use the freight elevator as a direct entrance from the alley on the ground floor to the roof, but the details would have to get worked out. Bell said for the restaurant space, he envisions sun covers or some sort of indoor-outdoor space with long transparent garage doors that can be shut in inclement weather.

“It’s actually beautiful up here in the winter, too,” he said. “And it’s pretty hot in August, so you need shade.”

Bell said there isn’t a “good, one-stop shopping place” to go find a tenant for this kind of project.

Worden Thane, a law firm that currently occupies the sixth and seventh floors, will relocate to the new Stockman Bank building downtown once it’s completed in December. Then, deconstruction and remodeling will begin. Bell said ALPS hopes to move in to the sixth and seventh floors by September of 2018. Local contractor Martel Construction has been hired for the job.

“If we don’t get a bar/restaurant partner secured in the next three or four months, to begin to work that into the architectural plans, then we might need to just move on without including that concept in the renovations,” Bell explained. “That would be a big missed opportunity for us and Missoula.”

Either way, Bell said they’ll build the utilities to the roof for something in the future, but it would be much easier to do the work while the remodel job is going on. He does intend to build a deck on the roof if he can’t find a partner, but that would only be usable for building tenants and employees.

“There’s a lot of efficiencies that can be gained if we do it now,” Bell said.

When the ALPS employees move to the sixth and seventh floors, which will be 15,000 square feet combined, that will leave the 14,000-square-foot second floor empty, so they’ll seek a tenant for that floor. The building is currently 100 percent occupied and there’s actually a waiting list for office space. Two popular restaurants, the Red Bird and the Catalyst Café, are already tenants on the ground floor.

Brian Delaney, the associate counsel for ALPS, said that he’s excited that the Florence can be a part of the huge revitalization going on in downtown Missoula.

“Really, it’s awesome that our downtown area is doing what it’s doing compared to so many other cities around not only the state but the country,” he said. “It’s completely thriving as opposed to going in the other direction which seems to be happening in a lot of other places. It’s kind of a treasure really.”