A series of raised medians planned for West Second Street has sparked the ire of business owners in Signature Plaza and residents in nearby neighborhoods.

The median is set to run from Karrow Avenue to Lion Mountain Road and will be installed during reconstruction of the state highway next summer. Portions of the median will be raised with grass and trees, while other sections will be a strip of raised concrete.

Breaks in the median and left-hand turn lanes for vehicles traveling west from downtown will be at Parkhill Drive, Fairview Drive, Nelson Lane and Fox Hollow Lane.

Cora Arnold, president of Signature Plaza at 750 West Second St., has been in talks with the state for nearly two years regarding concerns she and other business owners at the plaza have with the proposed median.

She notes that vehicles headed toward downtown wouldn’t be able to turn left into the plaza.

“Customers coming from the north cannot enter our parking lot without making a U-turn at Karrow Avenue, creating more of a hazard than if they turned left into our parking lot,” Arnold states in a letter to the Montana Department of Transportation.

Clients leaving the office complex would be required to turn right, forcing them to use either Parkhill Drive and West Third as a route back to town, or to make a U-turn on Ramsey Avenue. The impact to the residential neighborhoods could be significant, Arnold argues.

“Hundreds of cars routed through a residential area creates multiple concerns, including safety to children,” she said.

“We have a brand new highway and we’re going to divert traffic down Third Street? That quiet and peaceful neighborhood won’t be the same.”

The nine businesses at the plaza, including two tax offices, serve hundreds of clients that can generate up to 2,000 vehicle trips per month, Arnold estimates.

“That’s a lot of traffic,” she said. “We have a large clientele, especially during tax season. There isn’t one owner [at Signature Plaza] that wants that median. It would be very inconvenient for customers.”

The proposed project was originally evaluated in 1994 under the U.S. 93 Somers to Whitefish West Environmental Impact Statement. It was re-evaluated with public review in 2008.

Arnold notes that the plan pre-dates the existence of Signature Plaza.

She has asked MDOT to consider a break in the median, or to create a three-lane stretch in front of the plaza.

“The DOT has provided other businesses along the proposed road construction with such an opening in the median including the Whitefish Lake Golf Course, Grouse Mountain Lodge, and John Constenius,” she wrote to MDOT. “It would appear somewhat discriminatory for the nine businesses at this location to not be entitled to the same rights and considerations as these other entities.”

In responding to Arnold, MDOT chief counsel Edward Beaudette says the distances from intersecting roads allowed for turn lanes at Grouse Mountain and the golf course.

Beaudette said the plaza’s proximity to the intersection of West Second with Murray Avenue and Parkhill precludes a break in the median.

“Such a median break would defeat the purpose of installing a median in the first place,” he said.

Beaudette said it was “extremely unlikely” that hundreds of cars would be forced into the West Third and Parkhill neighborhoods. He estimates that traffic volumes out of the plaza average about 50 cars per day.

He said the right-in, right-out access at the plaza meets legal requirements of reasonable access under Montana law.

“Medians to control turning movements are used widely across the state,” he said.

However, according to Arnold, MDOT officials recently said they might reconsider the median in front of the plaza.

Arnold has since asked Whitefish City Council for their support.

“But the city’s hands are tied,” she said, noting that it’s a state project. “They contacted the DOT with my concerns.”