This story is excerpted from Helena This Week, a weekly newsletter covering Helena city government, public school meetings, business news and upcoming entertainment and events.
The former Hawthorne Elementary could be the site of a new neighborhood community center, according to Helena school officials.
During a school board meeting last week, Helena Public School District Superintendent Rex Weltz updated the trustees on the status of the district’s request for proposals regarding the future of two decommissioned buildings, the May Butler building and Hawthorne Elementary.
Over the last two months, Weltz said, the district received only one proposal for Hawthorne that could result in a long-term lease agreement: a two-year plan to create a “multi-purpose” center at the Madison Avenue property.
“We’re a little excited about this,” Weltz said at last week’s meeting.
The project, currently called the Hawthorne Community Center Helena, would be operated by a nonprofit organization and provide spaces for community use, similar to Bozeman’s Emerson Center for Arts and Culture, Weltz said.
“It’s an arts place, it’s an office space, it’s for ballet, whatever,” Weltz added. “It’s a community-use area which I think is highly valuable.”
The district declined a request from Montana Free Press to release a copy of the proposal, including the applicant’s name, while the project is under review.
Weltz said during the meeting Jan. 12 that the proposal will be reviewed by the district’s lawyers before the facilities department makes a formal recommendation to the trustees.
“I’m excited that we’re not going to sit on a building that’s going to sit there and be dormant,” Weltz said. “We want activity, and we want liveliness in the neighborhood.”
Last June, the school board of trustees voted to close Hawthorne Elementary to address the school’s declining student enrollment and about $4.6 million in maintenance the district could not afford.
Another district facility, the May Butler building at 55 S. Rodney St., which previously housed the administration, was also closed. However, the district didn’t receive any proposals for that building before the deadline earlier this month. In 2024, school officials declined two proposals to use the building as a homeless shelter.
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