Mike Zadick tore down the old Holiday Motors building in Great Falls, which was his father’s property, saving as much of the building as he could to repurpose into Benchmark Wrestling with space for a wellness/multi use facility for the community.
Mike has had an extensive wrestling career which started when he was 5 years old. He competed in high school, college, and even in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Now with this opportunity to salvage his father’s building, he wants to pass that knowledge on to the Augusta community as well as provide a place with exercise equipment, and a full kitchen.
“It’s going slow from a standpoint of some permitting that I’m waiting to hear back from,” explained Mike. “My old building was built to code back in the old days, but the codes have changed so I have to reinforce it. We’re all meeting to figure out the best, most efficient way to brace it up more to meet the codes.”
Mike is working on his logo before publishing a website, “I want to have a brand that is repetitive, and people see it everywhere. I haven’t asked for funds yet because I don’t know my total, and that’s what’s kept changing on me. I have a couple of videos that were made that I can put out on Facebook and the website. I want to have a thermometer stick on telling us financially, where we are, and what our goal is. Then we can start fundraising through go fund me and have events and things like that.”
Mike admits it is a long process, but he has a dream that he will complete. “I must plan for the worst, and the highest expense and what it’s going to cost. But when you have companies saying we’re going to eat a lot of this cost and just do it for you. It’s awesome because it’s pretty powerful that they want to be part of the impact it’s going to have on the community.”