LEWISTOWN — Drive down Sixth Street in Lewistown and you can't miss it. The old Broadway Apartments used to house as many as 24 families, but for the past 40 years, the building has stood empty, vacant, and with doors locked to visitors.
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A Billings-based developer and architect, Randy Hafer, purchased the Broadway building and plans to restore it to a nice, functional apartment building, bringing much needed housing to Lewistown.
The Lewistown City Commission Chair, Kelly Anne Terry, said, “Professional jobs are needed as well and people need a place to live. We just don’t have very much inventory for that.”
“Lewistown is an older community, so there's been some great encouragement towards, and tax credits and things, for people to redo historic buildings or retrofit them in some way,” explained Terry.
Business owners in the community have similar concerns.
“I think the impact is really hard on your local businesses and trying to find people to work,” said Michelle Gibbons, owner of 618 Coffee. “Lewistown has a couple of really big ventures coming here [and] when those people come, I think the fear is really real on where will they live?”
It was announced last year that German based company, VACOM, will soon be moving into Lewistown, adding about 200 jobs in the next few years.
Terry said VACOM is building their own housing.
“There’s lots of projects going on in town, it's just they're not happening as quickly as we would like them to for who we have coming,” Terry added.
As for the Broadway Building, the timeline of its completion is unknown, as the building owner was unable to make a comment.
Gibbons added, “Any housing is great housing if they can add it here. That's the biggest concern we hear from all people. I mean, trying to even come from Billings, I’ve had a couple employees who want to move here, but then they can't find a place to live.”
Ultimately, one apartment building won’t solve the housing crisis in Lewistown, but it could be a good place to start.
