Butte Silver Bow Economic Development Committee Meeting - March 5, 2026
Butte Silver Bow Economic Development Committee Meeting - March 5, 2026
The Butte Silver Bow Economic Development Committee met on March 5, 2026, with Chair Josh O'Neill presiding. Also present were members Eric Mankins, Trudy Healy, Tommy Walker, and Butch Gerbrand, with Russ O'Leary absent. Kelly Sullivan and Melissa Wanamaker from Headwaters RC&D provided updates on local economic development initiatives and the Brownfields program.
Discussion Items
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Kelly Sullivan's Top 10 Report: Sullivan presented a monthly top 10 list for subscribers, highlighting recent community developments. She congratulated Jeff Riggs and Keith Waring on their purchase of the Old Boys Central Building on East Mercury Street, noting their previous investments in the Thornton Building, Manual Arts Building, Butte Elks Lodge, and Broadway Street Baptist Church. She also reported that a new credit management specialist, Brennan, had returned to Butte to assist homeowners and small businesses across Southwest Montana. Sullivan mentioned the submission of a $1.5 million Brownfield assessment coalition grant application to accelerate redevelopment. Other updates included: the Small Business Development Center now offering workshops online (QuickBooks, HR, marketing, cybersecurity); Governor Gianforte's Energy Task Force open house at Montana Tech focused on data centers, with attendance over 100; a ribbon cutting for Planet Fitness at Cornerstone Plaza; and Gloss, the Green Beauty Counter, receiving a USDA rural business development grant for marketing. She also announced World Trade and Investment Day to be held May 12 on the Montana Tech campus, featuring Delano Roosevelt (grandson of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) speaking on economic development and foreign trade. Commissioner Tommy Walker criticized the scheduling of the open house conflicting with the council meeting, calling it poor planning. Sullivan noted that attendees received information from SABI Corporation and other tables.
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Melissa Wanamaker's Brownfields Program Update: Wanamaker, Brownfields manager for Headwaters RC&D, provided an overview of the program. She explained that Brownfields addresses vacant or underutilized properties with contamination or fear of contamination, often from asbestos, lead-based paint, mercury, or PCBs. In 2022, Headwaters received a $1 million EPA cleanup grant; Wanamaker started in January 2024. She described how the program assists with assessments and cleanup, with 50% of funds for loans to nonprofits/government and about 25% for grants; oversight costs are covered separately to reduce borrower risk. Wanamaker emphasized the urgency of redeveloping historic buildings, citing a Deer Lodge project where delays increased abatement costs from $400,000 to $4 million. She highlighted several current and upcoming projects:
- Phoenix Building: Cleanup of basement pipes and asbestos, enabling accessible bathrooms for yoga/pottery studios and art co-op, plus safe passageway to elevator. The third floor will become 15 units of low-income housing; floors 4–6 will eventually host 75 units of overnight/short-term accommodations. Abatement of 292 windows is planned. Wanamaker requested committee approval for Custom Construction to use the parking garage as staging for cleanup, with work potentially starting Monday.
- Basin Creek Caretakers Cottage: Cleanup of vermiculite insulation, pack rat waste, and pigeon waste to prepare for safe abatement and construction.
- Blaine School (Walkerville): Assessment for asbestos (mastic, tiles, windows), lead-based paint, and roof damage. Planned public-private partnership with Hungry Hill Art Center for expanded art instruction, commercial kitchen, gym rentals, and potential space for roller derby and bike polo.
- Salvation Army Building and others in the assessment pipeline.
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Funding Applications: Wanamaker submitted a $1.5 million coalition assessment grant, with 30% for planning (architectural, structural engineering reports). She must submit a supplemental grant by March 16 to replenish the revolving loan fund (currently $278,000 remaining), seeking up to $800,000. She requested committee approval to roll $20,000 from the Phoenix project to Basin Creek to enhance eligibility for the larger amount.
Key Outcomes
- No votes or official decisions were recorded during the meeting. The committee received informational reports and expressed appreciation for the presenters. The meeting adjourned following a motion by an unidentified member.
Meeting Transcript
These gentlemen like to call the order of the economic develop development committee meeting March March 4th, 2026. President are Josh O'Neill, Eric Mankins, Trudy Healy, Tommy Walker, and Butch Gerbrand. I'm absent of Russ O'Leary. Also present at the meeting is Kelly Sullivan and Melissa Wanamaker. We're gonna hand the floor over to the famous Kelly Sullivan. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for having us tonight. I did something a little different this time. We put out a top 10 list every month to our subscribers. It's a little different than our newsletter. And I brought you our top 10 for March, and some of these things you might know about already, uh, but I'll touch on them briefly. And then uh the star of the show tonight is going to be Melissa Wanamaker. She's going to be talking about the Brownfields program and projects in Butte that she has in the works. So I think you'll be excited to hear what she has to tell us. Um first a congratulations to Jeff Riggs and Keith Waring. I know that this purchase of the Old Boys Central Building on East Mercury Street came before the Council of Commissioners. Uh these gentlemen also have invested in the Thornton Building, the Manual Arts Building, the Butte Elks Lodge, and the Broadway Street Baptist Church. And I just think their passion for Butte and investing in Butte and what you can do with a little vision and a little ingenuity with these old buildings is really exciting to see. So we want to give them a congratulations. So that training focused on credit management, and Brennan is educated in bringing credit management assistance and will be able to help homeowners and small and entrepreneurs from throughout Southwest Montana. And he's already uh he's only been back for about a week. He's already had quite a bit of interest in that. Uh along with two regional partners, and Melissa will talk about this some as well. This is in her wheelhouse. Uh, we submitted a one point five million dollar Brownfield assessment coalition grant application um to accelerate redevelopment in Butte. And then moving on, uh, spurred by client suggestions, our small business development center is now making our workshops available to people who want to join online. And I think you all know we do QuickBooks training, we do HR training, marketing and social media training. Uh we've done some cybersecurity training. And I'm drawing a blank on the other one that's on tap right now. Um but we've got quite a bit of trainings going on. We've just had several. Uh we'll be doing more in the spring, and then we do them again in the fall. Uh I think most of you know that Governor Gianforte's Energy Task Force in conjunction with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality hosted an open house at Montana Tech a week or so ago with a focus on data centers. There were folks there from Department of Commerce, Department of Revenue, um Butte Silver Bow, Butte Local Development, Northwestern Energy, and very importantly, Sabi Corporation to answer questions from interested citizens. Uh Butte's newly opened planet fitness had a ribbon cutting recently. Um the big news that came out of the ribbon cutting, and if you haven't been to that facility, it's fantastic. So he was so impressed by the warm welcome he received with the development at Cornerstone Plaza and Planet Fitness that he wanted to make another investment in our community. And then our client Gloss, the Green Beauty Counter, which is located on Park Street in Uptown, is the recipient of a USDA rural business development grant, and that will assist them with social media marketing efforts to promote their business. So we have access to grants that kind of run the gamut for all kinds of different things. Harder to come by construction grants, but planning, marketing, technical assistance, legal work, we can assist with a lot of those things. And then tomorrow I'll be spending the day with Brigitte Miranda Freer. She is from the Montana World Trade Center. And the World Trade Center, along with Butte Local Development and Butte Silverbow Community Development will be hosting World Trade and Investment Day for the state here in Butte on the Montana Tech campus on May 12th. One of our guests at that event will be Franklin Delano Roosevelt's grandson Delano Roosevelt. And he's going to be talking about economic development and foreign trade investment in our community. So that's kind of an exciting bit of news. And I see that I don't have ten things on here. So I must have done a bad job copying and pasting. I apologize. Commissioner Walker.
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