| The
partners in the Original Heritage Center have created this
public information site to inform the great citizens of
our community; officials of Butte-Silver Bow; various
local economic, business and tourism development groups;
and, the many governmental and quasi-governmental
organizations making decisions about the future of our
community, regarding the unequaled potential of The
Original Heritage Business Conference and Meeting Center.
In recent months, plans have been
forwarded, primarily by those operating the Butte-Silver
Bow Urban Revitalization Agency (URA), to develop and
construct a community heritage and conference center, in
direct competition with our group's development and the
commercial business operations of others in our
community. URA board members authorized the spending
of over $50,000. in taxpayer monies to "study"
the feasibility of the sighting and constructing their
planned center. As part of this study process, a
public survey was conducted by a local consultant with
ties to the URA. Survey questions were not properly
developed and the study was decried by news organizations
and citizens alike as being substantially flawed and
purposely devised to demonstrate results desired by the
URA.
The URA was not formed to build
buildings in Butte or develop business operations to
complete with existing Butte institutions and commercial
businesses. The URA was formed as a tax increment
district to help existing property and business owners
"revitalize" properties specifically located
with in the designated tax increment
district.
The promoters of the community heritage
and conference center, which include URA board members,
have attempted to justify the need for the construction of
their development, by indicating that Butte is suddenly in
need of a new home for the Butte Archives, a Heritage
Center, and a Business Meeting and Conference
Center.
The partners in The Original Heritage
Center project agree that the Butte
Archives is in need of a new home, in order to properly
protect historical documents. We also agree that the
community is in need of a competitive Business Meeting and
Conference Center, in order to attract business meetings
and conferences to the Butte area. Butte's heritage
resides in the remaining Butte Historic District and in
the great citizens of Butte, past and present, many of
whom have gone well above and beyond the call of duty in
providing their time, their labor, and their financial
resources, to build Butte and to keep it going during many
difficult times of the past 125 years.
We therefore, do not believe that designing and constructing a new building makes
any sense, under any circumstances. Butte's historic district has plenty of
existing buildings capable of meeting the various needs
detailed above. The Butte Archives could be housed
in any two or three relatively modern buildings in uptown
Butte. These buildings have modern environmental
control systems, fire control systems and are capable of
being modified for very little money, in order to meet every need of
the Butte Archives. The Original Heritage
Business and Conference Center being completed by our
group will meet and exceed the requirements of providing a
competitive-viable meeting-conference center for
Butte. The money needed to complete our project is
less that $350,000., as compared to the $3,000,000. to
$4,000,000. needed
by the URA backed plan. For less than $350,000. the
community will have a facility that would cost more the
$40,000.000. to construct today. The bottom line is there is no
reason to spend upwards of $3,000,000. on developing a facility that
will be substandard and will not be competitive with
facilities that cities like Missoula are building for more
than $20-million. For less than $350,000., Butte can
have a $40-million equivalent facility that no other city
in Montana or the surrounding region could afford to
build, and can also have a facility that properly
represents Butte's rich heritage and is a true
representation of Butte's historic district.
The Original Heritage Center is
in need of the undivided support of government,
quasi-governmental agencies, local economic and tourism
development agencies, and the good citizens of Butte, in
order to make our facility a competitive and financially
viable project in the long term, and to be able to deliver on our
most important goal: develop a competitive first class
business meeting and conference facility for our community and to
attract an ever increasing stream of business meetings and
conferences to Butte.
Recently, The Original Heritage
Center partners made a presentation to the Board and
Staff members of the URA, in order to provide a more
detailed overview of our project and to outline our goals
and development schedule. A copy of this
presentation is available for download by clicking
here.
We are asking the good citizens of Butte
to join us in this effort and to register your support for
our project with your Butte-Silver Bow Government
officials, including but not limited to Paul Babb,
Butte-Silver Bow Chief Executive. Please click on
this link to send a message to Paul Babb now: chiefexec@co.silverbow.mt.us .
To send your comments to Paul Babb, all Butte-Silver Bow
County Commissioners, URA Staff as well as Board Members and
local economic, business, and tourism development
officials, please click on this link: officialslist@originalheritagecenter.com
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