The City of Hastings Façade Improvement Program is ongoing, helping local businesses and property owners update the outside of their properties with funds in the downtown area.
City of Hastings Community Development Director Jon Hinzman said the city will match some funds to help out property owners get over the final hurdle.
“We want to be able to provide funding so people can make improvements to the exterior of their building. We’ll provide a 2-1 match for improvements to the exterior, so if a building owner provides ⅔ of the cost we will provide the matching ⅓ of it, up to $5,000. So if you have a $15,000 project, we can provide $5,000 of that. We’ve had it around for a few years, we’ve had some good success with people utilizing it improving their buildings, and we’ve expanded that beyond the downtown to Vermilion St. over the last couple of years.”
Hinzman said it is a program that benefits the entire city, making sure Hastings makes a good impression on visitors.
“We want to make sure the buildings in the downtown area and Vermilion St. provide a good image for people that are visiting the city. Sometimes some of those exterior treatments that are very visible, albeit they may be cosmetic and not a large concern for the building owners, they do reflect on the community itself. So we want to be able to make sure that the image of the community, to the visitors that we have in the downtown, is strong.”
Any property owner in the designated area who wishes to receive grant funds can learn more about the program by visiting this story on KDWA.com.