Flathead County has made an offer to buy the former Walmart building in Evergreen for a potential future expansion of the county jail, county officials confirmed Tuesday.

“It sounds like something we could certainly look at,” Commissioner Pam Holmquist said. “Right now we’ve made the offer and got no response. We’re just kind of waiting” for a counter-offer.

County Maintenance Director Jed Fisher initially looked at the 130,000-square-foot former box store as a potential site for a county-owned community recreation facility, but said the ceilings are too low to convert it into gymnasium space.

“The ceilings would have to be raised, and obviously that’s a pretty high cost,” Fisher said. “That’s when [County Administrator] Mike Pence and the commissioners began looking at other options. There’s quite a bit of land there, too.”

After Fisher suggested the Walmart building as a possible site for a bigger county jail, Sheriff Chuck Curry was consulted.

Overcrowding at the current county jail, built in 1985, has been a problem for decades. By 1992 daily prisoner counts often exceeded the number of beds.

That scenario has played out year after year, with an average of 89 inmates in a facility built to house 63 prisoners at capacity.

Last year the commissioners created a funding mechanism to begin setting aside money for a jail expansion. The county is reclaiming property-tax mills not levied from past years and earmarking the new tax revenue for a jail expansion.

The additional tax money, to be raised over seven years, is expected to generate close to $10 million.

The tax levy is subject to annual approval by the commissioners and has been left in place for the coming fiscal year, Holmquist said.

Commissioner Phil Mitchell said the county’s need for additional jail space is well-documented. It behooves the county to have a plan in place, he added.

“We’re at the very, very beginning stages,” Mitchell said. “We’re asking, do we add on to the jail or do we buy? What the best value? ... If [the owners of the Walmart building] want a ton of money for it, then it’s not worth it.”

Mitchell said the purchase would be contingent on doing a “major study of seeing what the community wants.”

Holmquist said she has talked with Evergreen residents and business leaders.

“There was some excitement and a little bit of concern,” she said. “Like I told them, there’s not much to tell until we get an idea if we can secure the property.”

The building was constructed in 1995 and Walmart is paying a lease on the facility through 2015. The property is owned by RIC Kalispell Trust, according to county records, and had an appraised value of $10.1 million for the land and building in 2014.

Commissioner Gary Krueger said the county does “have some interest” in the building, but he stressed that the feasibility of converting it for any use remains to be seen.

“As a forward-thinking person, I said, ‘Hey, let’s look at it,” Krueger said.

Pence, who typically handles the negotiations for any county real estate purchases, said he couldn’t comment on the purchase offer but acknowledged “the county has some interest in the potential use of a shell building.”

The concrete block building across U.S. 2 from Valley Ford has been empty since the retail giant relocated to its Supercenter store in north Kalispell in 2009.

A Maryland-based company pursued leasing or purchasing the Walmart building in 2012 for a manufacturing business, but that deal never materialized.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at [email protected].