Butte economic-development advocate Joe Willauer says it’s easy to take for granted vacant, blighted properties, the kind of properties that become part of the fabric of everyday life — blemishes on a town that residents stop paying attention to because the sites have been there seemingly forever.

Every town in Montana has them. They’re the abandoned gas stations overgrown with weeds. Vacant factory buildings from a bygone era. Old roundhouses that remain long after railroad companies have shuttered their doors.