Carousel is featured element in new Great Northern Town Center by Brenda McDonald Photo courtesy of A. Nicholson Where do bobcats, grizzly bears and buffalo frolic with big horn sheep? In Helena, at the Great Northern Town Center. The center, the brainchild of Montana State University alum Alan Nicholson, '62 Math, boasts a $1 million dollar carousel that features indigenous Montana animals and traditional horses. The carousel consists of 37 hand-carved animals, one chariot and a spinning tub. "The carousel is dear to me," said Nicholson. "I thought about having the bobcat nipping at the heels of the grizzly, but that might have been over the top." The carousel is one of the featured pieces of the center that sits on about 11 acres near Carroll College and located where the original railroad spur entered the center of Helena. It's called a main street district, an area that works to create a unique living, working and shopping environment. Although a math educator by training, Nicholson has entrepreneurism in his blood. "I grew up in Roundup where we had an appliance store and a motel," said Nicholson. Nicholson came to Helena with his wife Nancy (Morris), '72 Soc, as a math and sciences supervisor for the state. The father of five decided to leave education in the mid-1970s and began his career as a developer. "I always thought that we should be developing the core of our cities," he said. "I had been developing in downtown Helena for quite some time and had ideas about using the ground where the Great Northern is." He thought that spot would make a great high-density, mixed-use development. "Most town centers are just retail developments,"he said. "I wanted to create a new adjunct to the historic downtown with a bank, hotel, shops and housing that would be there for a while." In 1997 the Great Northern got underway with an $880,000 loan from the Helena Tax Increment Advisory Board that helped to put in the necessary infrastructure of streets and water and sewer lines. In September 1999, D.A. Davidson & Co. was the first tenant to move in. "People wondered if we could pull this project off," he said. Today, some $45 million in private funds have been invested in the center, which Nicholson says solidifies the central business district of Helena. "It's unique. There is no other multi-use development of this size in the United States in a market as small as Helena's," he said. The newest successes for the center are an eight-plex movie theatre and a Best Western-affiliated hotel. "Theatres are just not built in downtowns anymore," he said. "We worked for six years to lure the theater here." The hotel took just as much perseverance. "Big chains don't build hotels," he said. "So we put a partnership together to privately own and operate the hotel." This brought back memories for Nicholson, who remembers getting up in the middle of the night at his familyÕs motel to answer the buzzer from someone looking for a room. "I swore that I'd never get back in the business," he said. Projects on the horizon for the center are the Community Works! Exploration and Discovery Museum, and the Lewis and Clark Montana Experience. "I've been working on the Lewis and Clark project for five years," Nicholson said. As to whether he'll ever be able to say that the Great Northern is complete, Nicholson isn't sure. "It's always a work in progress,"he said.