Downtown Great Falls has seen a lot of growth over the last few years. Kellie Pierce, board director with the Downtown Development Partnership, said 2023 was a great year.
“Last year was 13.1 million. So, yes, a good increase in the amount of investment going on downtown, which you can see just by walking up and down central avenue that we have very vested folks and developers that are interested in downtown,” said Pierce.
Nine new businesses opened in downtown Great Falls in 2023, creating more than 100 new jobs. There were over 38,000 volunteer hours in 2023 within various downtown organizations, events, and activities.
Pierce said, “This is all collected throughout the year. Every quarter we collect stats from anything that goes on within the downtown master plan boundaries. So anywhere from farmer's market to the C.M. Russell Museum, just everything and anything that we can think of that would have volunteer hours coordinating with it. We collect those stats and compile them.”
The Downtown Development Partnership (DDP) collects data each year to track the growth of downtown. This includes volunteer hours, renovation investments, and new businesses.
“The Downtown Development Partnership is a nationally accredited main street program and through that we have to report stats to the Montana main street program out of Helena, the Department of Commerce,” Pierce said.
The DDP encourages growth and collaboration between businesses.
“[There is] lots of opportunity for growth and we're super excited for all of the things that are still yet to come.”
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