Montana CRE Insider Scoop: Industrial Doubles Down and Retail Rebounds

Hey, What’s That Montana?

In our last update, we covered a controversial project in Bozeman, the Farm District plan in Kalispell, and ribs in Great Falls. But that’s just the beginning of Montana’s busy development landscape.

That’s right. Over in Billings, parklets are really taking off. There are several of these small, outdoor seating spaces that help to expand retail capacity during the busy summer tourist season. Billings downtown has seen quite the revitalization recently, with the first ground-up housing development in over a decade just recently starting construction.

Housing is a hot topic across markets, with Bozeman showing an apartment vacancy of 1.5%. Missoula up to 2.9% vacancy after a sustained period of sub-1% availability. Nearly everywhere you go in Montana, buyers and renters are having a bit of sticker shock.

Every smaller markets like Hamilton are experiencing the housing squeeze. The Bitterroot Affordable Housing Coalition has raised the flag that a lack of housing has started to impact rural areas in Ravalli County, which wasn’t the case just a few years ago.

To combat these issues, places like Hamilton and Livingston have undertaken community master planning efforts. We’re closely tracking zoning and code changes related to these new community plans, so you should see some videos from us as development conditions evolve in Montana.

Beyond housing, retail development is making big waves across the state. Montana’s very first Backcountry.com store opened up in the former Gallatin Laundry building, and the very first The Joint Chiropractic location in the state just recently opened on North Reserve in Missoula.

We definitely can’t talk about development without mentioning industrial action. There is a large flex warehouse going in just north of Missoula, ringing in at just about 72,000 square feet.

Developers have an aggressive timeline, with groundbreaking scheduled for fall 2022 and a completion date just about one year later. As Montana keeps adding population, demand for industrial space is growing rapidly. That’s all for this update. Like and follow us for more like this.

Видео Montana CRE Insider Scoop: Industrial Doubles Down and Retail Rebounds канала Sterling Commercial Real Estate Advisors