The Uptown Master Plan organization is working with the Urban Revitalization Agency to revitalize Uptown Butte. In February, more than 220 people participated in Zoom meetings to come up with ideas on how to draw attention to Uptown.
"It’s a grassroots effort and they’ve organized themselves and they’re driven and they’re amazing, and so they’re a partner with us in this planning effort. People from every area—businesses, residents, everyone participated," said Karen Byrnes, Butte-Silver Bow Community Development Director.
At the meeting, consultants of the plan presented mock photos and explained what could be done in order to attract attention to Uptown Butte.
The focus was on the central business district.
DHM Design, the lead consultant for the uptown master plan, presented their ideas focused on preservation, marketing for vacant buildings and tourism, infrastructure as well as public improvements.
"One thing that I can say across the board in all of our groups that we’ve talked about is pedestrian lighting, making uptown brighter at night- really clicks off a lot of the things that we’ve been hearing about," Byrnes said.
Walker Christensen, principal of DHM Design, said that another one of the themes they are working on is walkability in Uptown Butte.
A concept sketch showed off what could be done at the intersection of Montana and Galena.
"So we started to look at all those things that people wanted to see, you know, improving pedestrian safety, having shorter crosswalks, a pedestrian refuge zone, and incorporating wayfindings, sidewalk café space," said Christensen.
The timeline for the Uptown Master Plan looks like this:
- From May to July, Uptown Master Plan begins draft work productions
- In August, another public meeting will be held
- From August to October, they will finalize the draft
- And from October to November, they will give a final draft presentation
"This is specific to Uptown Butte and then those actual items are going to be identified and who’s going to get them done so that we can move forward and so we’re really excited about that," said Byrnes.
Find out more at https://uptownbuttemasterplan.com/
