Grants available for downtown businesses
June 20 2011
Aim to improve appearance of downtown district
By Callie Jones Journal-Advocate staff writer
Posted: 06/17/2011 10:56:03 AM MDT
STERLING — The Sterling Urban Renewal Authority (SURA) is working to improve Sterling. Rich O’Connell and Jim Horner spoke about SURA and the grants it provides at a Rotary Club meeting on Wednesday.
SURA, which was established in 1981, was one of the first Urban Renewal Authorities that was set up after the Colorado Urban Renewal Authority law was enacted in 1958.
“The primary mission is to effect redevelopment in otherwise blighted areas,” O’Connell said. “There has to be blight before an urban renewal can be formed. There’s a lengthy process that you go through; you have to contact the landowners the make sure their agreement with this being considered blighted and the city municipality has to also agree.”
Horner talked about one of SURA’s newest projects, Gateway Business Park. Gateway was started in 2006 and is located in the area where Walgreens is.
When Walgreens was coming in, a stoplight was needed and SURA was able to put in part of the money, around $100,000, to pay for that stop light at Division and West Main Street.
“Presently we’re working, hopefully Bank of Colorado will eventually move over there and they’ll take up the front part of it,” Horner said.
SURA is also helping with streetscaping and beautification along N. Railway Road.
O’Connell also talked about the matching grants SURA offers, including a building improvement grant, a facade grant and a downtown relocation grant. He said in the last year, the amount of grants they’ve accepted and approved has increased 200 or 300 percent.
SURA has about $100,000 to $300,000 a year to put into grants.
“All grants are for properties within the SURA downtown subdistrict,” O’Connell said.
The Downtown District runs behind the overpass, Chestnut and Front Street, to N. Fifth Street, down to Main Street, back to Third Street, down to Beech Street, over to Front Street and back up.
Grant applications are available at Logan County Economic Development Corporation office at 213 Main St.
The building improvement grant is fairly new.
“What we’re trying to encourage or incentivize to property owners in the downtown district is to improve their properties to a level where they can be rentable and they’ll be attractive,” O’Connell said. “So if you’re going to make permanent improvements to your building, we will match up to $15,000 in improvements to a property once every five years.”
Applicants must be the property owner.
“We’ve had some people that wanted to be improving their properties as a tenant. This really must be done by the property owner because it is designed to be a permanent improvement to that property,” O’Connell said.
Once the applicant is initially approved, completes the work according to the plan and submits their invoice, they’re reimbursed.
The faade grant is for anything that can be visible from the street. SURA will match up to $5,000 in improvements to a property every five years.
“The intent there is to make our buildings in downtown district look nicer,” O’Connell said.
One of the things that was recommended by the CSU/DOLA concept plan that was completed last year is to do a faade design, so that over the years as property owners improve their properties they would design to certain design elements and style.
This type of grant could be used for that.
“Faade would be awnings, faade would be your front window, your door, brick work on the front, lighting, signs, this type of thing,” O’Connell said.
Tenants may apply for this grant, but they must apply as a co-applicant with the property owner.
Grant recipients, like with the building improvement grant, are reimbursed after the work has been completed and invoices submitted.
Last is the downtown relocation grant.
“The incentive there is to try and attract businesses into downtown district to maybe fill an empty spot,” O’Connell said. “We’ve been successful at this on several locations in the last couple years.”
“This is a larger grant and does include a lot of different things. Moving expenses could be in there, remodel, redoing fixtures and that type of thing.”
For this grant you must be an existing business that comes from outside the district.
“So, you can be in Sterling but not in the district and move in the district and qualify or you could be a relocating business from outside Sterling, and we’ve had some of both,” O’Connell said.
Applicants can be a property owner or a business owner and property owner as co-applicants.
“It’s really a two-year grant, because we pay 50 percent of the grant 30 days after they open for business and comply with the grant and then we pay 25 percent after year one and 25 percent after year two,” O’Connell said.
SURA will match up to $20,000 with this grant.
O’Connell also talked about a program the Economic Development Corporation is proposing,
Neighborhood Revitalization, to introduce to the legislature this year.
“It’s an enabling act which allows local taxing authorities to set up a voluntary program to identify a block or two, or maybe more, as an area that is in need of redevelopment,” he said.
The city could identify, for example, an area with some homes that are not in very good shape and say that part of town is a neighborhood revitalization area. Then they could tell the property owners, “if you come in and fix up your property, redevelop it in a way, we will hold your taxes steady where they are today, in 2011, and continue that on some kind of reduction schedule over the next say eight or nine years.”
It’s a locally controlled incentive that’s completely voluntary; business and landowners don’t have to do it, O’Connell noted.
Callie Jones: (970) 526-9286 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (970) 526-9286 end_of_the_skype_highlighting; cjones@journal-advocate.com
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