By CHRIS PETERSON

Hungry Horse News

Columbia Falls is holding off on closing a portion of Fifth Street for a small city square. That option was discussed last month after developer Mick Ruis suggested it to the city.

Ruis had offered to pay for the square.

City council, in turn, referred it to the city’s parks committee, which made a recommendation to have a broader community discussion on downtown and parking.

Closing the end of Fifth Street, aside from making it impassable to Nucleus Avenue, would mean the loss of roughly six parking spots.

Ruis is building apartments on the north end of the former city square. The apartments will include 18 studio and/or one bedroom apartments on the first floor on the west side of the building and 30 two-bedroom units spread out on the second and third floors, for 48 units total.

The east end of the building, which will face Nucleus Avenue, will have 7,500 square feet of commercial space.

With more and more development on Nucleus, parking is sure to be at a premium in the coming years.

Once the apartment project is complete, he plans on putting in a boutique hotel and a restaurant as well. There will be onsite parking and valet parking as well, as Ruis owns a parking lot behind condos on Nucleus Avenue.

Ruis isn’t the only one doing expansion on Nucleus Avenue. Uptown Hearth owner Terri Fuery plans on adding two stories to the bakery building. The upper floors will be office space and the lower floor an expanded bakery complete with a coffee roaster.

The bakery closed due the pandemic last year and did not reopen this summer, as Fuery was working on plans for the expansion and the future of the site. The community meeting on downtown should happen this winter, though a date hasn’t been set yet.