VW downtown receives $300,000 grant

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

It’s been seven years since Van Wert last received a downtown revitalization grant. That drought ended Wednesday with the announcement that a $300,000 Community Development Block Grant was awarded to Van Wert County for use in downtown Van Wert.

The grant provides a 50 percent match, up to a total project cost of $20,000, to downtown business owners who do building improvement projects.

Today’s award was the third downtown revitalization grant received through the state. The first was awarded in 2004, with the second coming in 2007. Both of those grants were for $400,000, but the award has since been cut to $300,000.

County Commissioner Todd Wolfrum thanked several people for their efforts in obtaining the grant, with most of the hard work being done by Main Street Van Wert Program Manager Adam Ries and County Economic Development Director Sarah Smith, with assistance from grant consultant Danielle Steinhauser of CT Consultants in Toledo, Van Wert Safety-Service Director Jay Fleming and several city department heads. Van Wert Municipal Court Judge Jill Leatherman also garnered a large share of credit for postponing a project to renovate the former First Financial Bank building into a new court facility so that it could be used as matching money for the federal grant, making the proposal much more competitive. That was a huge benefit, several people noted, since the CDBG program has become much harder to obtain over the past few years.

“There’s a good chance we wouldn’t have got this without the judge’s help,” Smith said. “She delayed her project so we could use her funds in what we were doing; the whole downtown project was more funded and it made our grant more viable.”

Wolfrum noted that the local grant application was one of 34 awarded out of 75 proposals submitted to the Ohio Development Services Agency, the state agency that administers the federal grant program.

“We are very happy that, as a result of collaboration, strategic thinking and hard work, Van Wert County will get its share — $300,000 — of the $9.5 million in federal funds the state has set aside for this kind of work,” Wolfrum said.

Smith was also pleased with the grant award.

“All of this came together to help leverage almost 60 percent participation from our current downtown business owners, who will, over the next two years, help transform the face of downtown Van Wert,” she said, while predicting: “This reinvestment in the community, and sense of pride at our county seat, will spread throughout the county, and I hope to see more projects and ideas and investment from within.”

Smith also credited the commissioners for being aggressive in seeking out state and federal grant money, especially important since all such grants must now be applied for at the county level. She also noted that the grant award was a credit to Ries’ hard work.

“This proves that, without Program Manager Adam Ries’ relationship with the building and business owners and his knowledge of downtown, this wouldn’t have been possible,” Smith said.

Ries was understandably pleased with the grant award.

“As an organization we charge ourselves to lead the work that will improve the physical, social, and economic environments that enable a downtown to thrive,” Ries said. “I strongly feel that this grant — and other state or federal programs — is one of the unique opportunities we are charged to seek out, and as often as possible, bring back to our community.”

Ries also pointed out the impact the grant dollars have on the community, noting that millions of dollars were invested in downtown improvement projects as a result of the first two grant awards. Moreover, the grants also inspire downtown business and building owners to invest even without matching grant funds.

The MSVW program manager noted that more than $2.8 million was invested in downtown improvement projects after the last downtown revitalization grant was exhausted in 2010.

Meanwhile, Ries said some administrative work still needs to be done before grant money is disbursed, noting that funding will be available starting in January 2015, with projects to be completed by the end of 2016.