City contracts architect for CDBG grant application

GRUNDY CENTER – Over a dozen building owners on Grundy Center’s Main Street may be eligible for a $500,000 block grant from the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Downtown Revitalization fund – a program that provides grants to communities for a variety of projects that contribute to comprehensive revitalization in historic city centers.
In Grundy Center, fourteen to sixteen downtown building owners are hoping to be awarded the grant, which will be used to repair and restore the historic façade work on their buildings.
As mentioned in a previous article in The Grundy Register, the CDBG fund is a matching grant with a cap of $500,000. This means that the CDBG fund will provide up to $500,000, as long as the city and the building owner can match the other $500,000. In other words, the CDBG fund will pay 50 percent of whatever the project will cost, and the city and the building owner will match the remaining cost based on what the building owner can afford.
In order to even apply for the grant, though, the city must submit an application containing an architectural depiction of what the proposed façade renovations would look like.
With this in mind, the city contracted services from Bergland & Cram, and architectural firm out of Mason City, at Monday night’s meeting.
For the full story, see the December 8 edition of The Grundy Register.