(Spencer)– A new grant program has been developed for business and building owners in Spencer’s downtown district. Eric Meeter, President of the Spencer Main Street Board, says the Main Street Micros program will be offered twice a year…
“There’s going to be a spring application and a fall application and we will kind of take those applications and we have a panel that will judge them based on the criteria that is included in the grant application.”
Meeter says it will be a competitive grant consisting of a 3 to 5 minute video pitch with criteria based on the Main Street Iowa Open4Business Competition…
“First prize will be a maximum of $10,000, so our ultimate goal is that we will give a 1st, 2nd and a 3rd every application, and that will also depend on the project, like you have to have a little bit of a match and that’s all laid out in the application. But our goal as a Main Street Board is that every round we’re hoping to kind of pump around $20,000 into the community.”
Meeter says the grants can be used for a couple of things…
“You know there’s no longer a storefront initiative program necessarily going on, so these funds could be used towards that to try and update your facade. There is kind of a new business incentive, too. We do want to draw in new businesses as well. But then there’s business expansion. So if you’ve got this idea and you need a new piece of equipment to offer something new to our community, that’s a great reason to apply. And then also like if you’re working on a project, especially with like the upper stories of downtown, we know we have a lot of unused space in the upper stories and there’s just a hurdle in that that’s maybe like getting things up to code with fire protection or sprinkler systems, that kind of stuff, then you’d be able to use these funds towards that as well.”
Applications can be found at SpencerMainStreet.com. Round 1 spring applications are due April 1st. Round 2 applications in the fall will be due October 1st.
Spencer Main Street Executive Director Nancy Naeve says they’ve been working on the Main Street Micros project for more than 6 months.
