News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
McMinnville has received a $300,000 Downtown Improvement Grant to be used for upgrades to buildings and facades.
Main Street McMinnville applied for the grant. Executive Director Jennifer Meredith said business owners can use the grant money to improve building facades at a 25 percent match.
“Having this really helps us grow the economic development,” Meredith said. “It helps us re-vitalize buildings that need help, it helps us attract new business and everything we do, even for Main Street, is about historic preservation, revitalization our downtown, but also just the economic impact and growth that we can have.”
Meredith said it felt good to see the General Assembly value putting money back into downtowns in at-risk or distressed counties. Meredith said the state said they hope to begin grant contracts sometime in the upcoming spring.
Meredith said McMinnville would then be granted a two-year period where they will be allowed to use the funds provided.
“We’ve had a lot of new business come into McMinnville,” Meredith said. “And we have a few buildings that are still old and falling down and in need of repair.”
Meredith said it felt good to see the General Assembly value putting money back into downtowns in at-risk or distressed counties.
“We love the way that our streetscape and downtown looks,” Meredith said. “But just to be able to have this money to help continue this process and to continue to help revitalize the buildings and make them look fresh.”
Meredith said that the state previously offered only $150,000 for the same grant opportunity. Meredith said seventeen communities in general received the grant during this round of applications.
