Four architectural firms will pitch their design ideas for a new Whitefish City Hall and parking garage complex during an upcoming design contest to be staged at the City Council chambers in Whitefish.

A steering committee that has been guiding the project is hosting a design competition that will include public input. The daylong process will start at 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, Dec. 11. Mosaic Architecture of Helena will give the first presentation, followed by MMW Architecture of Missoula at 10:15 a.m.

After lunch, CTA Architects of Kalispell presents its proposal at 1 p.m. At 2:45 p.m. J Constenius Architecture of Whitefish, paired with OZ Architects of Missoula, will make the final presentation.

Steering committee members will interview each firm after the 30-minute presentations and then will make a recommendation to the City Council.

The public is invited to attend the design competition, listen to the interview process and provide written comments on each firm’s proposal.

“The purpose of a design competition is to get a sense of each firm’s creativity at designing a city hall that fits our downtown along with a parking structure,” said Sherri Baccaro, chairwoman of the steering committee.

Mayor John Muhlfeld said it’s important to involve city residents in the process because the new structure will be a prominent facility in the downtown area.

Building a new City Hall complex is estimated to cost $11.5 million.

The process of selecting the current City Hall location for the new city government building and a parking structure took months of deliberation by the City Council that ended in a tie vote.

Muhlfeld broke the tie in favor of building at the current location.

Council members had fundamental differences about whether using a full city block in downtown is the best use of that property.

In 2011 the council set up the steering committee, which includes the mayor, a city council member, city staff, a licensed architect, members of the public and representatives from the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce and Heart of Whitefish downtown support group.

A year ago the city rolled out conceptual drawings about what the facility could look like, but the final design choice will dictate where the entrances to City Hall and the parking structure will be. The number of parking spots likely will range from 190 to 265 depending on the layout. A study showed the need for 200 more parking spaces during peak demand periods in the downtown area.

A new City Hall has been in the long-range plans for Whitefish since 1987 when it was included in an urban renewal plan. In 2005 a downtown master plan identified the need for a new facility.

Currently, city staffers are located in several locations and the existing building is past its useful life, the downtown master plan noted. The city looked at remodeling the existing building, but it wasn’t financially feasible to remodel the building due to structural deficiencies.

The addition of a parking structure also limited the ability to reuse the existing building.

For more information, visit the city of Whitefish website at www.whitefish.govoffice.com. Project-specific information can be found on the city website, www.whitefish.govoffice.com, by clicking on “Committees, Boards and Commissions” and selecting “Future City Hall Ad Hoc Steering Committee.”

Comments about the project may be mailed to: Sherri Baccaro, City of Whitefish, Future City Hall Steering Committee Chair, P.O. Box 158, Whitefish, MT 59937. Comments also may be submitted by email to publicworks@cityofwhitefish.org.

People attending the presentations on Dec. 11 are invited to submit comments at that time.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.