Parking garage, skybridge would serve Stillwater Building

Plans are underway to build a six-level, 430-stall parking garage across the street from the former James F. Battin federal courthouse, now known as the Stillwater Building.

The announcement was made Wednesday afternoon by Eggart Engineering and Construction, the Billings contractor renovating the old courthouse at 316 N. 26th St. on behalf of the building’s owners, WC Commercial LLC, out of Alaska. Plans call for linking the parking garage to the Stillwater Building with a skybridge.

Quentin Eggart, president of EEC, whose company will also be building the parking garage at 317 N. 26th St., said work could begin by the end of the year and the garage could be completed by next August, if all goes well.

He said the owners of the projected garage are separate from WC Commercial, though the two companies have worked together on projects before. Eggart, who was traveling and didn’t have all the information on the project with him, said he couldn’t remember the name of the company that will own the garage, though he knew it was based in Dillon.

MTN News has reported that a state property database identifies the garage owner as CRMX-223 LLC, of Dillon.

Eggart said the parking garage will make it much easier to find tenants for the Stillwater Building, which is being transformed into a Class A office space. The old courthouse was bought at a foreclosure sale by WC Commercial.

The Dillon company that will own the parking garage purchased the land from the owners of the Diamond Parking Lot, a surface lot that previously occupied the space.

Eggart said the owners of the proposed garage have not asked for any funding from the downtown tax increment financing district. The owners of the Stillwater Building have a pending request for $1.5 million in financing from the TIF district. The City Council is scheduled to vote on the request on Oct. 23.

Eggart said plans for the parking garage don’t include any retail spaces, “but we are getting approached by people about doing some stuff.” If somebody comes up with a viable proposal soon, he said, some kind retail development could be included in the plans.

There is no firm estimate of the cost of the garage, Eggart said, but a parking garage of that size would probably cost in the neighborhood of $15 million.

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