Great Falls, Sweetgrass Development win $400,000 grants

Regional Environmental Protection Agency administrator Shaun McGrath on Thursday awarded $400,000 each in brownfields environmental assessment grants to the Great Falls Development Authority, which will focus its cleanup efforts on the core downtown and riverfront areas, and Sweetgrass Development, which serves five northcentral counties and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.

The Cut Bank Area Chamber of Commerce also was awarded a $145,833 grant to clean up and revitalize the Public Drug Building, one of the town's first commercial buildings.

McGrath said the grants are extremely competitive and complimented the winning groups for great vision, planning and partnerships with private entrepreneurs.

He made the announcement before 75 city officials and businesspeople in the Celtic Cowboy Pub and Restaurant, a former livery stable built in 1890 whose business partners have received a brownfields grant to help restore the Arvon Block Building, which also includes a boutique hotel to open this summer.

"I wish I could offer you all a toast with a proper pint, but 9 a.m. might be a little early for that," quipped McGrath, a former mayor of Boulder, Colo.

More seriously, McGrath said, folks might not immediately think of the letters EPA when it comes to creating new restaurants, office space, housing and business opportunities, but the agency's brownfields environmental cleanup and restoration program has helped leverage more than $23 billion in redevelopment projects across the country since 1994.

"The selection of Great Falls Development and Sweetgrass Development is a clear indication that you have coupled ambitious plans with the means and expertise to achieve your goals," he said.

McGrath called Great Falls, which has received $2.3 million in brownfields assessment and revolving loan funds since 2003, "a national leader in building a capacity and commitment to redeveloping properties" by using EPA grants and loans to leverage millions of dollars in investments.

GFDA project manager Lillian Sunwall later ticked off projects that received brownfields assessment or cleanup help. They included loans to True Brew Coffee, formerly Mountain Mudd, and to the Arvon Block Building, and grants to nonprofits including the Center for Mental Health for restoring a westside building into a transition center; to the Great Falls Community Food Bank for restoring its northcentral building; and to Easter Seals-Goodwill for restoring a downtown bank building and an eastside facility.

McGrath said Sweetgrass Development faced a different set of challenges in getting its first EPA brownfields grant. It serves several small communities in five large counties and the Blackfeet Reservation. But last year Sweetgrass executive director Sarah Converse and her staff worked with state officials to complete an inventory that identified 150 sites with redevelopment potential.

"This opportunity is immense for our region," Converse said, adding that about 20 of those 150 sites are especially primed for redevelopment.

Converse is working with the Blackfeet Environmental Office to pool cleanup funds. The Blackfeet tribe can only spend money on trust land projects owned by the tribe, she said, while Sweetgrass can spend it on fee land projects owned by private individuals.

"Redevelopment projects are very difficult and financially challenging," and take a partnership by patient and hardworking business developers with help from city and county officials, said GFDA President Brett Doney, who added that assessing and cleaning up hazardous materials is particularly expensive.

"This grant will lead to more redevelopment projects," he said.

Doney praised Sunwall for jump-starting the GFDA's dormant brownfields project about six years ago and becoming an expert who now speaks at conferences about redevelopment.

Elsewhere in Montana, the city of Missoula was awarded a $400,000 EPA grant to assess projects focusing on urban renewal along the Clark Fork riverfront.