Nov. 13–A ceremony today will launch renovation plans for a vacant, landmark building in Whitehall that is intended to provide new vitality to the city’s downtown.
The 11 a.m. signing of loan papers with Rocky Mountain Bank there will secure about $1.2 million of the money needed for the roughly $1.5 million renovation of the vacant Borden’s Hotel, said Tara Mastel, manager with the Jefferson Local Development Corp., which owns the building.
The building will seek federal certification in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program after the renovation is completed, Mastel said.
Meeting the LEED platinum standard will help make the building more efficient to operate and have a greater asset value among its benefits, a news release stated.
Helping fund the renovation will also be Barrick’s Golden Sunlight Mine in Whitehall, which will be contributing $450,000 toward the project and will receive tax credits in return, Mastel said.
Dan Banghart, general manager of the mine in Whitehall, said the mine wanted to be a partner in the Borden’s Hotel project to help reverse the loss of downtown businesses.
The community lost five buildings and nine businesses were affected by a downtown fire in March 2009.
“It makes a lot of sense,” he said of the decision to participate in the project. “It’s right here.”
Helping to revitalize Whitehall’s downtown, he added, helps prepare the community for the day when the mine closes.
While gold prices affect the mine’s future, Banghart said, the mine has a couple of years worth of reserves and is looking at other options to prolong its life.
The building, originally known as the Modern Hotel before being named after the surviving owner in 1933, is significant to the community and there is widespread interest in it.
“It’s always been the heart, the center of the cultural life of the town,” Mastel said.
The Development Corp. has been trying to reinvigorate Whitehall for several years. It sought to purchase the five downtown lots left vacant after the 2009 fire, she said.
Owners of those properties and the Development Corp. however could not agree on the price.
The owner of the Borden’s building, which lost its last tenant shortly after the 2009 fire, offered to sell to the Development Corp. on a contract for deed for $20,000, Mastel added.
The Development Corp.’s plans call for addressing any environmental contamination issues that the building, which dates back to 1913, may have before seeking bids in late December on the renovation and awarding a bid in mid-January. Construction would then start in February with the work completed by next summer.
Helping to repay the loan will be rent from the nine apartments that are to be developed on the building’s second floor as well as rent from retail, office and commercial space available on the ground floor, Mastel said. The Development Corp. will be moving its offices to the new building too.
Terms of the tax credit programs require that the building not be sold for five years, which is what the Development Corp. currently plans for the building. A private buyer would be sought once the building can be sold.
Roy McBride, president of the Rocky Mountain bank’s Whitehall office, said the bank has been a supporter of the project for the roughly two years that it’s been under consideration and added, “we know that it will revitalize that main street.”
“I think it’s just going to be a good thing for the community to grow,” he continued.
Participating in the renovation reflects the bank’s involvement in community projects, McBride added.
When he moved to Whitehall nearly seven years ago, Borden’s Hotel was where all of the community functions were held, McBride said.
The 13,000-square-foot brick building saw additions in 1919, 1929 and 1941, according to an application to have the building listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
According to registry form seeking a listing, the Modern Hotel was renamed after hotel proprietor Hilda Borden. The hotel felt the effects of the arrival of the interstate highway through Montana in 1961 as commerce in Whitehall shifted to the north and nearer to the new interstate highway. The eventual loss of passenger trains in the early 1970s saw the decline of the hotel as a hub for travelers.
Just as the loss of passenger train service helped to seal the hotel’s fate, the arrival of the railroad and development of the Montana Railroad’s Butte Short Line in June 1890 gave birth to Whitehall that quickly grew to become a trade center, according to the application that the hotel be listed on the registry.
Whitehall became a supply point for area mining camps as well as a place for shipping livestock and agricultural produce to market. Those initial wooden buildings built near the railroad tracks were replaced with brick.
The Modern Hotel is one of the earliest two-story brick commercial buildings constructed in downtown Whitehall and represents the second generation of the community’s early buildings and the Western Commercial architectural style that was typical of the day, the registry application notes.
