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4/21/2025
Downtown’s underfunded underpass
The colorful artwork depicting area landmarks has brightened a downtown section of First Avenue North for more than a decade, but it’s starting to show its age.
The murals enclose the street’s underpass, which runs along the southern end of Gibson Park and the Milwaukee Station properties, which are separated by a railroad line. It wasn’t historically a busy pedestrian route, but that part of town has grown around the underpass.
The addition of The Station District to the Milwaukee Station brought a new dining option to the edge of downtown, and its adjoining apartments could mean dozens of residents have an easy walk to the heart of downtown. The First Avenue underpass isn’t always an enticing walk. Dark in the daytime, unplowed in the wintertime and dotted with pigeon droppings, the underpass has been a topic of conversation among downtown stakeholders for years.
“Downtown is the heartbeat of any city,” said Kellie Pierce, executive director of the Business Improvement District and Downtown Great Falls Association. “So we want people to know when they’ve entered our district and know there are cool things happening. The artwork really exemplifies that.”
The artwork is just part of the updates pitched for the underpass, though progress has been slow. The underpass sits in a unique, multi-jurisdictional space that creates challenges for funding and coordination between multiple entities.
The underpass is within the downtown master plan boundaries, which puts Pierce at the forefront of coordination. Just the southern portion of the underpass is within the Business Improvement District. The same situation applies to the downtown urban renewal tax increment finance district. That impacts how work on the underpass could be funded. Only one side of the mural would be eligible for TIF funds, for example.
There’s also a patchwork of property ownership. The roadway itself is managed by the Montana Department of Transportation, so certain improvements on that property need to be cleared by the state agency. The department recently paid to upgrade the lighting above the sidewalk tunnels and keep the walkway clear of snow and pigeon droppings. Pierce said she’s working with the state on handrail replacements.
“MDT said it’s going to be about $80,000 to replace all of the handrail,” she said. “And so that’s working in partnership with the city and MDT.”
The bridge is a railway owned by BNSF, so the company is responsible for removing the graffiti that faces pedestrians and drivers on the bridge, according to Pierce.
Above all, there’s a challenge to find money to fund all the upgrades, Pierce said. The underpass has been a regular meeting agenda topic for the Business Improvement District board for about a year, and plans are coming together. Pierce spoke with Cameron Moberg, a longtime collaborator for the Great Walls mural festival, to get a rough estimate for refreshing the artwork along the corridor. The response was as much as $300,000. It’s a lot of wall space to cover, after all.
But Pierce said that groups like the Business Improvement District, the Great Falls Development Alliance and other stakeholders are helping to pave the way for improvements. With the construction of Clearwater Credit Union coming to the corner of First Avenue North and Park Drive, there is a vision to remake that entrance intersection into downtown. That could include pedestrian access improvements, signs and the murals that downtown has become known for.
“We’re also working with some local architects to maybe get a rendering of what that whole corridor could look like,” Pierce said.
By the numbers
Estimated attendance for the Fourth of July Hootenanny in 2024, according to materials from the Tourism Business Improvement District board. The 2025 event features musician Easton Corbin, and developments can be followed at the event website.
Following up
Two defense attorneys saw no evidence to back up the Border Patrol’s claims of gang affiliation for two men whose illegal entry cases were dismissed, according to a story Montana Free Press published last week.
After that story was published, MTFP heard from another defense attorney involved in the same case. He also said he saw no evidence of gang affiliation and that the Border Patrol agents never told his client about the accusation.
“They never told him,” said Nate Ellis, a Helena-based defense attorney. “I was the first to inform him of that. He was completely surprised.”
Ellis represents Carlos Alexis Ponce-Lopez, who was arrested in March along with two other men, as well as an American woman who is accused of smuggling the migrants. A federal judge dismissed the cases against the two other men because they couldn’t be prosecuted in Montana for entering the country for the first time at the southern border.
But Ellis’ client, Ponce-Lopez, is expected to plead guilty this week to a felony count of illegal reentry in U.S. District Court in Great Falls.
Like the other attorneys, Ellis said that his work on the case was disrupted by Border Patrol’s claim that all three men were members of a Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua.
In March, the Border Patrol Havre Sector posted about the arrest on Facebook and claimed the men “have been identified as Tren de Aragua gang members.” The agency appears to be the only one making that allegation. There is no mention of gang affiliation in court documents for any of the men, in press releases about the case or in discovery files behind the scenes, according to the defense attorneys.
Ellis said that in conversations with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he learned that border enforcement agencies can follow a two-step process for making gang allegations. The first step comes from observations by agents in the field. The second step is to nominate someone for gang affiliation review through a centralized government office.
“They hadn’t been nominated, any of the three men,” Ellis told MTFP. “I was told they [the U.S. Attorney’s Office] would let me know if my client had been nominated in the future.”
A spokesperson for the Border Patrol didn’t return inquiries about the nomination and review process for alleged gang affiliation. The agency previously declined to share any information supporting the accusation of gang membership.
A government validation guide for suspected gang members that was cited in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union requires authorities to verify that the suspect is Venezuelan. Ellis’ client, Ponce-Lopez, is a citizen of Honduras, a fact that agents determined at the time of arrest, according to court documents.
The allegation of gang membership is important as the Trump administration has targeted suspected members for arrests and deportations to a prison in El Salvador. Multiple news outlets have reported that law enforcement’s attention to clothing and tattoos is an unreliable indicator.
“The government is playing fast and loose and really vague with this stuff,” Ellis said.
The Border Patrol’s Facebook post remains up on the social media site. The messaging was amplified by some local news outlets and conservative radio. Great Falls TV station KRTV initially recited the Border Patrol’s accusation of gang membership. After MTFP’s story was published, the station edited the headline to include the word “allegedly” with no explanation for the change.
5 things to know in Great Falls
The city of Great Falls expects to receive $235,000, the first of several payments related to a national opioid settlement reached in a massive lawsuit against pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors. On April 15, the city appointed two city commissioners and the finance director to join a governing body that will help distribute another tranche of funds that will be placed into a trust and distributed to the Cascade County metro region. Those trust funds amount to about $743,000, with more coming in subsequent years. The governing body, which will include city and county representatives, will determine how to distribute the funds.
The Great Falls City Commission approved using up to $50,000 to add signs to the parking garage on Fourth Street and First Avenue North. The upgrades will include an entrance sign, a directional sign for drivers, wall signs and stairwell signs, all intended to help visitors recognize and use the public parking garage. Funds will come from the downtown tax increment finance district, and a bidding process will determine the exact cost.
The C.M. Russell Museum announced Duane Braaten as its new executive director. Braaten has worked with the museum for decades and was most recently its director of art and philanthropy. He succeeds Chris Warden in the role. “As a Great Falls kid who has revered Charlie Russell since I was a student at C.M. Russell Elementary, the opportunity to be the next executive director of the C.M. Russell Museum is a dream come true,” Braaten said in a statement.
The city of Great Falls is taking nominations for the 2025 Paris Gibson Award, which honors “the citizen who best embodies the vision and excellence exemplified by Paris Gibson,” according to the city. The nominee must be a Great Falls resident who has provided significant impact, leadership and selfless action in service of the city. The 2024 winner was Harold Spilde. Nomination forms can be found here.
NeighborWorks Great Falls and Malmstrom Air Force Base are hosting a neighborhood cleanup event April 25 and 26. Local teams will assemble to pick up trash, rake leaves and clean up neighborhoods while Malmstrom trucks haul trash to a dump site, where Republic Services waives the fee. For more information on how to join, email [email protected].
Might be fun
The 45th-annual Ice Breaker Road Race is Sunday. Visitors should prepare for road closures around downtown. There are routes for five, three or one-mile races, and registration is still available here. Anyone interested in being a race volunteer can find more information here.
