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Bear Paw Development Corp., a community and economic development organization with a five-decade history in the area, has moved out of its long-time home in the Ryan Building on the 10 Block of Second Avenue and has moved into the WIPFLi building at 300 Second Ave.
Bear Paw Executive Director Paul Tuss said the Ryan Building has accommodated them well for 25 years, but recent staff expansions made staying there problematic, so they took the opportunity to move to the WIPFLi building, which will provide them much more space.
Before moving to the Ryan Building in 1997, Bear Paw Development was in the second story of the former Havre post office, now the Havre Historic Post Office.
Tuss, who's running as a Democrat for Montana House District 28 against Republican Rep. Ed Hill, said that, in the last two years, they've needed to expand their staff in both economic and community development, in part to handle the influx of state and federal funds into the area through the American Rescue Plan Act.
Bear Paw, in addition to offering loans to small businesses looking to start up or expand, assists local governments with financing including infrastructure improvements. Its district, the first federally recognized economic improvement district in Montana, ranges across Hill, Blaine, Liberty, Phillips and Chouteau counties as well as Fort Belknap and Rocky Boy's Indian reservations, and ARPA, and the projects it's paying for, has necessitated hiring a number of people their previous building just couldn't handle.
"We were pretty cramped into our previous location," Tuss said. "Like sardines."
A couple of the positions added in past few years are temporary, he said, and as the pandemic recedes they will be vacated, but many of the positions they added will continue to be necessary just because their operations have expanded so much in the last couple years.
He said even with the new staff members they are at capacity for the number of projects they are working on, including water and sewer projects as well as general infrastructure enhancements.
On top of that, Tuss said, they've also expanded the economic development side of the organization, having added another loan officer to help local small businesses.
Tuss said they've been in their new location for two weeks and so for they are really pleased with the new space.
He said despite the issues they had at the Ryan Building, there are elements of it that they miss, including great neighbors in the building and an excellent conference area, but having more space is great.
"It's a good location for us, and we're excited to be here for maybe the next 25 years," he said.
He said the layout of their new space is also great, with everyone's offices closer together allowing them to function as a more cohesive whole.
The location is also closer to Havre's post office and the Hill County Courthouse, not that the last location was terribly far away, Tuss said.
He said Bear Paw Development does a great deal of work in the community for the public and private sectors, from community planning to their Brownfields program to the work they do in value-added agriculture, and they hope this new space will allow them to continue that work.
"We've kind of been doing soup-to-nuts in terms of community and economic development ... for the last 53 years, and hopefully we'll keep going for another 53," he said.
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