With an eye on renovating the historic federal building in downtown Missoula and streamlining government services, the City Council this week approved a number of initial funding tools to move the effort forward.

Among them, council approved the Fiscal Year '26 budget for the special district that manages the building, and also approved a $1.9 million Brownfields agreement to abate hazardous materials.

John Adams, the city's strategic project administrator, said total asbestos costs are estimated at $2.8 million, with $1.9 million coming from the city's Brownfields fund and the remaining $857,000 from state funding.

The abatement work begins what's likely to be a slow push to renovate and eventually occupy the 112-year-old structure.

“We had a pretty good idea of what we were getting i

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