A team of consultants hired by the Great Falls Development Alliance spent over a year creating a market assessment and economic vitality strategy to increase visitors and investors to the downtown area. They presented their assessment Wednesday morning to some of the Development Alliance’s partner organizations.
Leland Consulting Group spent over a year working with downtown stakeholders and business owners to create a report on how to continue the growth and investment in downtown Great Falls. The team also utilized software that uses cell phone data to track what downtown areas people visited the most. They found that visitors tend to only stay in one portion of downtown, rather than walk around and visit the entire area.
Business Development Officer for Downtown Great Falls Nicki Dallison says, “We’re going to take that data and continue to implement various events. We've talked about additional lighting in downtown, more general maintenance - so power washing. How can we just beautify downtown more to continue to drive people and drive communities, investors downtown?”
Increasing vibrancy in downtown is one of the main priorities, even mentioning bistro lights being strung up along the streets. The consultant group compared Great Falls’ downtown to other cities, like Bozeman, and found Great Falls has a lower concentration of food and entertainment in their downtown areas than other peer cities. Currently, only 15% of the city’s arts and entertainment are located downtown.
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A large portion of the presentation focused on the need for housing in downtown. As of 2021, nearly three quarters of housing units in downtown were built before 1960. According to the findings, downtown has the capacity to fulfill 12-18% of the total housing demand in the city. Leland Consulting Group suggested taking underused surface parking lots and developing them into housing.
The consultant group also suggested more connection between downtown and the riverfront. For example, they found that the Applebees along River Drive is the most visited Applebees in the state. However, visitors to the Applebees tend not to visit the downtown area as well. Expanding downtown to include River Drive and utilize the river views would increase the amount of visitors to local businesses, and market the city further as a ‘river city’.
Another underutilized category is hospitality. Currently, only 14% of the city’s hotel rooms are downtown. Adding more hotels within walking distance to downtown would bring more visitors to shop and dine in the area.
Key takeaways Leland Consulting Group concluded include:
- Downtown Great Falls is showing significant momentum
- Recent investments in housing and retail help demonstrate demand (i.e. Station Lofts)
- Adding a variety of housing types downtown will help support local businesses
- Opportunity for more boutique hospitality rooms as downtown continues to grow
- Nationwide office market challenges make new office space unlikely
The findings encouraged the GFDA and partners to continue their expansion and funding programs, and reassured them that they are on the right track. During the third quarter of 2024 alone, five new businesses opened up in downtown, creating 40 new jobs. Dallison says, “We’re extremely excited about the growth we’ve seen recently in downtown Great Falls, and we’re super excited to help investors and help business owners move that forward and continue to create vibrancy in downtown”.
For more information on downtown Great Falls developments, click here.
