Here’s some business news in the Missoula area:
The nonprofit Downtown Missoula Partnership says business development in downtown has been robust in the first six months of 2024, with 14 new businesses opening and 14 more that have expanded or relocated within the area.
Some of the new ventures include Ritual Yoga at 133 N. Higgins, Out of the Box Cigars at 629 Woody, the Stables restaurant at 235 W. Main and Montana Gift Corral at 117 W. Front. The former Mountain Valley Inn at 420 W. Broadway was recently remodeled into the new LOGE Missoula hotel and the Dog Wash Cafe.
Catalyst to Go finally opened at 123 E. Main in May, and Clyde Coffee opened a second location at the Missoula Public Library. Servin’ Thyme restaurant relocated from 424 N. Higgins to 1256 W. Broadway. Two local food trucks — Mexican Moose and Stuffed 406 — opened their first brick and mortar store together at 221 W. Broadway.
People are also reading…
“It’s been an active first six months in the world of business development,” said Charlie Beaton, president of the Downtown Business Improvement District and owner of Big Dipper Ice Cream. “Many of our locally owned businesses have worked hard over the last year to put themselves in a position to relocate, expand, or open a second location, despite the cost of goods and services rising over the last year. Downtown Missoula is still a pretty hot market.”
In the same six months, six businesses closed in the downtown area, including four retail businesses and two restaurants. River Wok and Subway closed on East Broadway, and Lewis and Clark Adventures relocated to both Lolo and Alberton.
The Downtown Missoula Partnership has been tracking business activity since 2008 and has seen more than 300 new businesses open their doors in downtown since. Over the last two years, the Partnership has worked closely with the Missoula Economic Partnership and business development director Christine Littig to ensure Missoula-area businesses are supported and connected with needed resources.
“It’s a pleasure working with local business owners and helping them navigate the many decisions they must make,” Littig said. “Problem solving, expansions, renovations, supply chain issues, labor shortages, and of course access to capital and cash flow projections: These are things business owners deal with on a regular basis. It is also exciting to engage with budding business owners developing their ideas and growing into their first space.”
There are multiple spaces downtown undergoing renovations, including 301 North Higgins and 130 North Higgins. These newly renovated spaces will bring new businesses to downtown before the end of 2024.
The Missoula-based nonprofit Clearwater Credit Union, the second-largest credit union in Montana, announced the launch of a new Clean Energy Certificate of Deposit, making it the first financial institution in Montana to offer such a savings product.
Clearwater’s 24-Month Clean Energy CD provides depositors with an opportunity to earn market competitive returns while simultaneously making a positive impact with their deposits, the company said.
Different from traditional CDs, Clearwater designates the pooled deposits to fund loans for clean energy initiatives that help Montana homeowners and businesses improve energy efficiency, reduce environmental impact, and help build a thriving clean energy economy.
“Clearwater’s Clean Energy CD aligns with our commitment to protect the environment and preserve Montana’s natural resources for future generations, while also empowering more Montanans to embrace clean energy solutions,” said Jack Lawson, Clearwater president and CEO. “This CD is ideal for people who want their deposits to have a meaningful impact.”
In addition to the Clean Energy CD, the program also includes a Solar Loan to finance solar panel installations; an Energy Efficiency Loan to help homeowners improve energy performance and indoor air quality while providing added cooling during summer months; a Clean Energy Mortgage option that offers discounted pricing for utilizing energy efficiency or conservation measures and a Clean Energy Commercial Loan for financing high performance new construction, solar panel installation or energy-efficient retrofits.
By Spring 2025, Clearwater will also offer a Clean Energy Advisory service. Free to Clearwater members, this service will help members understand their options for improving the efficiency and comfort of their homes or businesses, get advice in selecting improvements and connect with trusted contractors.
Three months after announcing the creation of the region’s first and only mobile extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) program, Billings Clinic and Community Medical Center completed the first successful patient transport in Montana.
ECMO serves as life support for patients whose heart or lungs can’t perform their normal functions. This technology provides a bridge to recovery for patients with reversible lung failure, such as respiratory distress due to the flu, pneumonia, drowning or pancreatitis. The goal is to stabilize patients long enough to fix the problem that caused their illness and minimize trauma to lung tissue so they can recover. Billings Clinic’s Mobile ECMO Team transports this technology and highly trained medical professionals to patients throughout Montana and Wyoming to initiate mobile heart-lung bypass so they can be flown to a higher level of care.
“In addition to being a medical first for the state of Montana and the region, this is a significant advancement for the care of critically ill patients who would otherwise have no other therapeutic options available,” said Bradley Genovese, M.D., Billings Clinic cardiothoracic surgeon and surgical director for the ECMO program. “The people of our region deserve the same high-level care no matter where they live, and this is another way we can help to make that a reality.”
Earlier this month, the Billings Clinic team completed its first off-site mobile ECMO patient air transport to Billings. The patient initially arrived at Community Medical Center in Missoula with severe respiratory failure. Eric Feucht, M.D., a critical care physician at Community, first recognized the urgent need for ECMO but the patient was too unstable to transport. Working with interventional cardiologist Morgan Kellogg, M.D., with the Billings Clinic Heart and Vascular Center at Community, he contacted Billings Clinic to initiate their mobile ECMO team. The team flew to Missoula to initiate ECMO and the Billings Clinic MedFlight air ambulance program safely transported the patient back to Billings. After several days, the patient no longer required the use of ECMO on their care and recovery journey.
“Having mobile ECMO in Montana is an enormous benefit for patients who have become so sick that transporting them without ECMO would be dangerous,” said Dr. Feucht. “Prior to having this service available we would have tried to transport the patient out of state if they were stable enough to make the trip. If they were not stable to transport, clinical outcomes often deteriorated.”
ECMO has been available in a limited number of hospital-based settings throughout the region, but local hospitals have not had the ability to transport unstable patients to a higher level of care.
In states like Montana and Wyoming, where the distance between hospitals, communities and trauma centers can stretch hundreds of miles, the ability to deliver and coordinate complex care such as ECMO to where the patient is can mean the difference between life and death.
David Erickson is the business reporter for the Missoulian.