Downtown grant allows free business face-lifts

Six thousand dollars remain unspent for downtown businesses looking to spiff up their exteriors and is set to expire in July. Through the grant, Milledgeville Mainstreet offers financial assistance to store owners to restore, renovate and repair the exteriors of their buildings. Accepted applicants are reimbursed for half of what they spend in these types of improvements, up to $1,000.

According to Director of Milledgeville Mainstreet Carlee Shulte, the 50/50 Façade Match grant focuses on economic restructuring, one of the four main points of the department, with the intention of stimulating downtown revitalization, redevelopment, economic development and tourism development.

“It’s important to Mainstreet to fund this type of (project) because one of our key points is economic reconstruction within the context of historical preservation,” Shulte said. “When you improve a façade, it improves your downtown which in turn will interest stakeholders if it looks better. People will want to come downtown more if it looks nice, if they feel more comfortable there, if it’s not a slum area.”

The money used for these grants comes strictly from the annual proceeds of the Deep Roots Festival and can be used on repairs of paint, brick, wood, awnings, doors and windows. Signage, however, is a notable exception from the list of approved uses.

“(Signs are) actually not included anymore in the grant because signage can cost a lot and then if the business doesn’t stay, we’ve wasted our money,” Schulte said. “So it was the decision of the committee to remove signage from the offering.”

To receive funding owners must complete a seven-step process. Before starting the repairs a store owner must complete an application for Code Enforcement, receive a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission and receive the approval of Code Enforcement Department. The owner would then proceed to complete the work within six months of the grant application date. When the work is complete, copies of receipts must be provided to Mainstreet. Then, the work is reviewed and audited by the grant committee, and finally, the owner is reimbursed.

Last year six businesses took advantage of $6,000 worth of Mainstreet’s 50/50 Façade Match funding: Digital Bridges, Amici, Oconee Outfitters, Hard to Find Iron Works, Metropolis Cafe and Lafayette Square.

At least one, Digital Bridges, also invested in design services offered through Milledgeville Mainstreet. The discounted design services come from a three-way partnership between the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation and The University of Georgia Department of Environment and Design. The services focus on historic buildings — interiors and exteriors — and landscape work. Since 2001, 22 Milledgeville properties have used the design services.

According to Program Manager of Design Services Steve Storey, owners who apply are provided with color drawings or renderings to show general recommendations for the buildings.

“The usual approach is to restore the historic character of a building,” Storey said. “Milledgeville has quite a few historic buildings; many of which have been altered through the years especially the first floors. Our usual approach is to look for historic photographs…and try to identify what in the building is historical material and what was added at a later date. And then we try to come up with recommendations that fit the particular building and preserve the building but make it useful for whatever business is going into the building.”

Historic photographs are just one aspect of how the building is approached. Walk-throughs of the property are also used to determine what parts of the building are original with special attention given to the facade. These walk-throughs give staff the opportunity to examine the building in detail and remove coverings to see what might be underneath.

Director of Digital Bridges Heather Holder believes the 50/50 Façade Match grant and design services have made a significant impact on Digital Bridges, a Georgia College technology-focused venture for the community. When the renovations of the building began, serious interior changes were the dominant focus. The building needed air conditioning and plumbing that could withstand heavier use as well as built in networking capability. As the project progressed, however, Holder recognized the facade of the building as a major barrier to causal community use of the facility.

“The building prior had a really long awning and it was also dark so it blocked all the sunlight from coming in,” Holder said. “The paint had weathered and faded. We had this incredible looking building on the interior but getting people in the doors…We were able to apply for a facade match grant from Mainstreet which made (the facade changes) feasible for us to do.”

Four weeks after submitting the design services application through Mainstreet, Holder received her solution. The recommendations included new paint — Dorset Gold, Copper Mountain, Wethersfield Moss, and Bucland Blue; stripping the awning from the front, and her personal favorite a finely finished metal sign replicating their logo. While Holder went rogue on a few of the suggestion such as tweaking one of the paint colors, she is overwhelmingly happy with the design.

“The metal sign that was fabricated I think was a fascinating solution,” Holder said. “(The building) was meant to have an awning so there was a big expanse of space between where the windows are and where the door is. So somehow we needed to address and fill the space and the idea of fabricating a metal version of our logo that wouldn’t be sign but more of an art piece was something that the Georgia Trust came up with and I think it’s been an incredible showing and asserting a look to the future and modern edge without doing anything that changes historic integrity of the property.”

One of the misconceptions that Storey and Holder recognize and battle within communities is the belief that all the buildings in a downtown area should look identical in terms of the century projected.

“It’s not a matter of taking everything back to the Victorian era or whatever,” Storey said. “The approach is to preserve as much historical character that exists but make it work in the current century.”

The designers generally avoid recommending that a building be returned to its exact original state, recreating a storefront that may have once existed but would be difficult and expensive to replicate, and speculating on what may have been but is not factually historical.

“There is a real craft to honoring the past but also projecting a vision of the future,” Holder said. “Everybody (thinks) shouldn’t all the buildings be the same or shouldn’t all the buildings go back to a certain decade and they shouldn’t because they should be telling a story. It’s kind of what makes us who we are…If it’s all about going back to what we were, then you create that Disneyland image and everybody can do that but not everybody can be Milledgeville.”