Missoula Business Weekly

The University of Montana continued to put its enrollment woes behind it, reporting a 3.7% increase in students - the largest annual year of growth in 14 years.

With hopes of landing a federal grant, Missoula County last week signed a letter to the U.S. Department of Transportation, asking it to support plans to redevelop the Highway 200 corridor through East Missoula.

One of Montana’s few in-state laboratories that had participated in the roll-out of the recreational and medical marijuana programs said that it has closed its doors, largely based on concerns the owners have with scientific accuracy of testing the formerly banned substance.

Development interest in a number of properties owned by the City of Missoula is high, and officials believe activity could begin within the coming year on some of them.

A Montana bank founded in 1953 by a rancher in Miles City has since grown to serve the state, and this month it's celebrating 70 years of business.

William Munoz writes, "The Counting Crows have succeeded to be a 'good' band, one that Robbie Robertson recognized all those years ago."

The Missoula Redevelopment Agency this week approved a $65,000 contract directing Cushing Terrell to design and engineer lighting the trail's 2.7-mile stretch from the south side of Missoula to the Clark Fork River.

The act would add about 78,000 acres of wilderness to the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat and Mission Mountains wilderness areas and create two recreation management areas for snowmobiling and mountain biking.

A pilot program that looks to boost the construction of workforce housing and direct revenue into the city's Affordable Housing Trust Fund was approved by the Missoula Redevelopment Agency's board of commissioners on Thursday.

The state's shift in property taxes away from corporations to homeowners is reaching a breaking point as households struggle, Missoula city officials said.