HAMILTON — Montana has many old downtown corridors with historic charm, but sometimes that charm needs renovation.
The Hamilton Downtown Facade Improvement Program is a new grant opportunity for downtown businesses to help pay for storefront renovations.
Back in 2022, the City of Hamilton and the Hamilton Downtown Association applied for a grant through the Montana Main Street Program, which awards funds to downtown corridors across the state for revitalization and historical preservation projects.
The money awarded to Hamilton from the Main Street Program allowed the Hamilton Downtown Association to award $58,950 to fund 11 different projects.
The Facade Improvement Program is a matching grant, one-to-one up to $7,500. Each business’s renovation design must be approved by the Facade Improvement Committee.
“To make sure that our downtown stays cohesive and historically accurate and everybody is using best practices,” Hamilton Downtown Association executive director Robin Pruitt told MTN.
The selected projects include renovations at the City Center Motel, Clay Works in the Bitterroot, Bitterroot Furniture and Chapter One Bookstore.
The projects are meant to give new life to the businesses without taking away from their historical significance.
“We’re lucky, our downtown has stayed generally the same, there haven’t been huge changes to our historic buildings, so most of these improvements are just paint and awnings,” Pruitt says. “Freshening up the already historical character downtown.”
While the renovations may seem small, they're a big help to the small businesses.
Chapter One Bookstore is celebrating its 50 year anniversary, but until this grant, their awnings were falling apart.
“Every time the wind blew too much you’d just be afraid that it was going to fly down Main Street,” owner Marisa Neyenhuis says. “They told us about this awesome program where we could make our building look better and not have to spend all of our money on it.”
The Facade Improvement Grant was also able to help pay for two new Hamilton murals — one in a downtown alleyway and the other on the face of Chapter One Bookstore.
“We’re so excited about being able to bring art to downtown Hamilton, hopefully inspiring other businesses,” Neyenhuis says.
With a fresh awning or coat of paint, local businesses can attract more customers and tourists.
“It really brings fresh eyes to these buildings and these businesses and make them pop in a way that maybe they haven’t over the years,” Matthew Rohrbach, city planner for Hamilton, says. It can make people notice those businesses in a new way, whether they're new to Hamilton or they’ve lived here for 10, 20, 30 years.”
The City of Hamilton and the Hamilton Downtown Association hope to continue the grant program into the future until all Main Street Businesses are able to make necessary improvements.
The public can support the program by donating to the Hamilton Downtown Foundation, which is the fundraising arm of the Hamilton Downtown Association.
“I love the community pride that we have in our mainstreet and our downtown and I think that these projects really just make everybody feel more proud of what we have here,” Pruitt says.
Chapter One Bookstore will unveil the mural at their 50th anniversary block party on July 12 from 5 p.m. until 8 p.m.
