{"id":13752,"date":"2016-08-18T07:14:57","date_gmt":"2016-08-18T13:14:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=13752"},"modified":"2016-08-19T07:18:53","modified_gmt":"2016-08-19T13:18:53","slug":"for-existing-businesses-huge-project-brings-big-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/08\/for-existing-businesses-huge-project-brings-big-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"For existing businesses, huge project brings big changes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Marylee\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Marylee Moreland, seen inside the Meadowlark Gallery that she owns with her husband, Gary Temple, thinks the One Big Sky Center will do great things for the downtown.<\/p><\/div>\n

Some of the business owners who stand to be displaced by the huge development project<\/a> planned for downtown Billings are worrying about what they will do next, but not Gary Temple and Marylee Moreland.<\/p>\n

The married couple own Meadowlark Gallery at 118 N. 29th St. and they live above the art gallery. If the One Big Sky Center comes off as planned, a 25-story building, the tallest in Montana, will rise up from the site of their gallery.<\/p>\n

The project, with a price tag of more than $120 million<\/a>, would include a hotel, apartments, a conference center, a parking garage and a pedestrian greenway, all centered on the corner of First Avenue North and North 29th Street.<\/p>\n

Temple and Moreland expect the developers of the project to close on their three-floor, 32,000-square-foot building in February. They plan to downsize and buy a smaller gallery-house southwest of Billings, open only by appointment.<\/p>\n

They are both enthusiastic supporters of One Big Sky Center. Indeed, it would be hard to top Moreland\u2019s endorsement of the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis development coming to Billings will be as beneficial \u2026 as when the railroad came at the turn of the century,\u201d she said. \u201cIt will have that broad of an impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

George \u201cSkip\u201d Ahern, one of three partners in MontDevCo LLC, the company behind the project, said they have already bought or are under contract to buy all the land that makes up the project\u2019s footprint, 70,000 square feet in all, including a parking lot at First and 29th.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>A few doors down from Meadowlark Gallery, at Yesteryears Antique Mall, 102 N. 29th St., owner Colleen Rooke has bittersweet feelings about the project. She\u2019s had friendly dealings with the developers, she said, but she doesn\u2019t know what will happen to her business.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s been in the antique business for 32 years in four locations, and the one she\u2019s in now is by far her most successful. After starting in a single room with less than 500 square feet, she is now leasing 15,000 square feet on three levels, with 50 antique vendors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not bragging, but we\u2019re one of the busiest businesses downtown,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She was thinking of retiring in a few years and selling the business anyway, but now she doesn\u2019t know how to go about that. She said the Downtown Billings Alliance has promised to help her find a new location, but everything is up in the air while people wait to see whether the One Big Sky Center will actually be built.<\/p>\n

\"Rooke\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Colleen Rooke, owner of the Yesteryears Antique Mall, is in limbo as she awaits further developments regarding the One Big Sky Center.<\/p><\/div>\n

The city is being asked to put up an undetermined amount of tax increment finance district money to build the conference center, greenway and parking garage. Ahern presented the City Council<\/a> with an overview of the plans Monday night; the next step will come when he and his partners give the council a draft of a predevelopment agreement on Sept. 12.<\/p>\n

Montana Vintage Clothing owner Sherry Daly, at 112 N. 29th, is also a supporter, though she\u2019s not sure where she\u2019ll end up if the development goes through.<\/p>\n

She has been in her current location for three years and was next door for six years before that. She said MontDevCo has made \u201cfair offers\u201d for her building, and the developers have to give her two months\u2019 notice before she would have to leave, but like Rooke, she can\u2019t really make moving plans until the project\u2019s prospects become clearer.<\/p>\n

Still, she said, \u201cI really believe that in the long run, this will be good for downtown Billings. \u2026 I really do endorse it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there is Swank Enterprises, the contractor that recently moved into a renovated building at 2925 First Ave. N., which used to house Cook Travel and later a campaign office for U.S. Rep. Ryan Zinke, R-Mont. It is just across the alley from the backside of Yesteryear Antique Mall and would be demolished to make way for part of One Big Sky Center\u2019s parking garage.<\/p>\n

The manager there, Mark Qualman, could not be reached for comment, but presumably Swank has no objections to the project, since Ahren said on Monday that Swank would be the general contractor on the project. Swank Enterprises was founded in Valier, south of Cutbank, in 1960 and now provides construction services in Montana, Washington, Idaho and Wyoming.<\/p>\n

\"Swank\"<\/a>

Ed Kemmick\/Last Best News<\/p>

Swank Enterprises, which will be the general contractor on the One Big Sky Center project, will have to demolish its recently renovated office building at First Avenue North and North 30th Street to make way for the project. The Pepsi sign at right is the back wall of Yesteryears Antique Mall. The two-story brick wall at left is part of the building that houses Art House Cinema & Pub.<\/p><\/div>\n

Next door to Swank, at 109 N. 30th Street, Art House Cinema & Pub isn\u2019t going anywhere, according to founder Matt Blakeslee.<\/p>\n

MontDevCo expressed an interest in buying the building the Art House is in, Blakeslee said, but he has a secure lease and has been assured by the building owner that Art House will be staying put. In fact, Blakeslee said, he is still working toward his\u00a0long-term goal of buying the building and expanding the number of screens.<\/p>\n

One Big Sky Center\u2019s plans include a five-screen movie theater, but Blakeslee said that shouldn\u2019t affect Art House Cinema, since it shows independent and alternative films, as opposed to the first-run films that would be shown next door.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t feel like we\u2019re ever in competition with \u2018Star Wars,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Blakeslee said the project should be good for Art House and all downtown businesses, because \u201cany reason to come downtown is a win for us. \u2026 that\u2019s just good for the us and good for the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only other occupied business that would have to move to make way for the project is the Wise Wonders Children\u2019s Museum at 110 N. 29th, between the antique mall and Montana Vintage Clothing. The museum director, Kelli Toohill, could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0three-story building on Second Avenue, which runs west from North 29th to the alley and used to house a Wendy\u2019s restaurant, is not part of the development. At the moment, its street-level storefronts are vacant.<\/p>\n

Businesses north of Art House Cinema on North 30th\u2014La Tinga restaurant, the Leather Factory, Wetzels Quality Cleaners and Shanghai Village restaurant\u2014likewise are not part of the development footprint.<\/p>\n

Nor does the development require the relocation of any of the business on the east side of North 29th Street, north of the parking lot that the developers have already purchased, a string of stores that includes Brockel\u2019s Chocolates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of the business owners who stand to be displaced by the huge development project planned for downtown Billings are worrying about what they will do next, but not Gary Temple and Marylee Moreland. The married couple own Meadowlark Gallery at 118 N. 29th St. and they live above the art gallery. If the One […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[2151,4849,4850,4839,4853,4852,4851],"class_list":["post-13752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-art-house-cinema","tag-meadowlark-gallery","tag-montana-vintage-clothing","tag-one-big-sky-center","tag-swank-enterprises","tag-wise-wonders-childrens-museum","tag-yesteryears-antique-mall","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}