April 24, 2024

Completion!

‘Victory’ party held for finish of CDBG facade project in downtown area

By AMY HANSEN

OST photo by AMY HANSEN This is a close-up image of the renovation of Stoney Oak Properties building on the square in Osceola. It used to be the former Hart's Bridal building. An image of what the building used to look like can be found in the bottom left corner.

It was a party that was years in the making.

On Thursday, July 9, Osceola Chamber Main Street (OCMS) hosted a “Victory Celebration” in honor of the completion of the community development block grant facade project.

The project helped enhance the exterior look of many of the businesses in the downtown area.

“Most of the people I’ve heard say it made a massive change downtown, and a lot of buildings like the old Hart’s Bridal, which is now where Stoney Oak is, looks fantastic, and they wish more buildings had been a part of it,” said Derek Lumsden, OCMS executive director.

There was music, food provided by Clarke County Cattlemen and tours of the buildings.

Project

Throughout the past couple of months, construction was underway on 14 buildings around the town square through a downtown revitalization grant under the CDBG program housed in Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) from federal Housing and Urban Development funds.

The project has been in the works since August 2013 when Osceola City Council approved the grant in the amount of $468,500.

The project allows building owners to fix up the front, or facade, of their buildings. This means awnings, windows, storefront windows, doors, tuck pointing, which is fixing the building’s bricks, and cornices, which are on the top of the building.

The grant was a matching grant from the city. The city was to match 25 percent of the funding and each individual business owner was to help match the other 25 percent.

Well-spent

This means the project brings in approximately $1 million in funding to the downtown area.

Last year, there was also a grant amendment increase of approximately $11,000, which was spread out among the project’s 14 buildings.

Construction officially began June 25 of last year, so it’s been more than a year to get to this finished point.

“I think overall it’s very close to what we had originally predicted … I think it turned out great,” Lumsden said.