A new effort to establish a business improvement district in Uptown Butte is underway, and it appears to be far more organized and focused than any effort in at least the past decade.
Supporters plan four information sessions next week, followed by door-to-door canvassing and petition signature gathering in July. If enough property owners agree to the commercial district, approval will be sought from the Board of Commissioners, possibly as soon as August.
Organizers are funding the effort with $50,000 in grants and donations and have hired a Missoula-based consultant, Cascadia Management Group, to help.
Vehicles pass through the intersection of Main and Broadway streets in Uptown Butte on Wednesday. The area will be part of Butte's proposed Business Improvement District.
Joseph Scherer Montana Standard
Hotel Finlen co-owner and neighborhood advocate Shanna Adams detailed her campaign to elect commissioners Wednesday night, talking about improvements that could be funded to bring more visitors and patrons to Uptown.
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Several cities in Montana have Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), where property owners essentially tax themselves and use the money for maintenance, security, promotion, landscaping and other improvements in the designated areas.
The money can be used for a variety of purposes, including maintaining crosswalks and streets, pressure washing sidewalks, extra snow removal, paying for extra security, and marketing and promotional activities.
The BID proposed here would cover about 30 blocks of Uptown Butte's central business district. To establish a district, owners of more than 60 percent of the property area must support the district.
The proposed district contains 170 owners of commercial property on 247 parcels of land, excluding residential properties, so approval from the owners of more than 60 percent of those parcels would be sufficient.
Montana's other large cities — Billings, Missoula, Great Falls, Helena, Kalispell and Bozeman — all have BIDs, said Tracy Worley, senior consultant at Cascadia Management Group. Hamilton also has a BID.
The BID is one of the goals included in the Uptown Master Plan adopted by the commissioners in 2022.
“We have four meetings scheduled for next week and we're going to do a lot of outreach,” said Adams, who helped steer the master plan. “We're going door to door, we're going to have to talk to everybody and explain our goals.”
If a BID is established, property owners would pay an annual levy to fund improvements to the district, and a board of business owners would oversee the district and make final spending decisions.
Under the current proposal, each owner would pay a flat fee of $150, plus 0.03 percent of the property's square footage and 0.1 percent of the property's taxable value, a scheme that is expected to bring in between $200,000 and $215,000 a year.
State law allows for many different methods and combinations of methods for BID evaluation and may vary from city to city.
“We've looked at a variety of models around the state and a multi-pronged approach appears to be the fairest,” Adams told commissioners. “If we were to just look at taxable value, it may not be completely fair across the board.”
“If you're just looking at floor area, larger buildings are at a disadvantage,” she says. “We ran a number of scenarios to see what the valuations were.”
Adams said organizers have detailed information about the properties and can give each owner an assessed value.
Worley said under the proposal, the assessment model would stay the same for 10 years, after which it could be changed during the renewal process and would also allow school districts to expand if they had support, she said.
If enough signatures are collected, commissioners can pass a “resolution of intent” creating the district, and anyone being assessed who opposes the plan can submit a written protest for consideration.
Dave Palmer had hoped to give impetus to the BID when he was chief executive from 2017 to 2020. He said past efforts had failed because different business owner groups didn't come together.
Mr Palmer said in 2018 there was concern about who would be held responsible and “mistrust as to what the outcome would be”.
He hopes the April 2018 meeting will eventually lead to a BID, and in a way, it planted the seeds for the current effort.
About 75 business owners gathered that night to discuss a “vision plan” for Uptown Butte, which led to the creation of the Uptown Master Plan, which was adopted in 2022. That plan recommended a BID, and the current effort follows on from that.
Eric Mankins was among the commissioners who expressed gratitude to Adams and others for their efforts Wednesday night. He made a direct appeal to Uptown business owners, saying the BID-funded improvements will pay off.
“We need you all,” he said. “Once these developments are completed, we'll get paid in full. They (visitors and patrons) will come. This is a great vision.”
The group, called the Uptown Butte BID, is holding four public meetings this week to discuss the BID and the benefits it could fund, as well as answer questions from business owners and others.
It will all be held in the Action Inc. conference room at 24 W. Silver St.
There are two meetings scheduled for Tuesday, one from 12:30pm to 1:30pm and the other from 6pm to 7pm. There are two meetings scheduled for Wednesday, the first from 7:30am to 8:30am and the second from 12:30pm to 1:30pm.
Mike Smith is a government and politics reporter for the Montana Standard.
