Culver’s Main Street could get a boost if awarded a Preserving Main Street grant.
Culver Town Manager Ginny Bess Munroe explained to the Culver Town Council members last week that members of the Develop Culver organization were approached about submitting an application to Office of Community and Rural Affairs’ Preserving Main Street grant worth $2 million.
Munroe said, “That would go toward preserving a historic property on Main Street and we’re sort of thinking maybe that would be First Farmers Bank.”
Munroe said that some preliminary architect work, cost estimates and a study have been done already in previous efforts to come up with funding to preserve the structure.
Munroe continued, “The thought is that that might be the ideal project because we’ve done some work on it, it qualifies because it’s in our downtown Main Street area, and it happens to be sitting in a historic district. One of the requirements of this grant is that wherever you do a project, if you get the grant, it will have to be designated historic.”
Munroe asked the council to be the governing body as a pass-through entity to support the grant application. Other partnering entities have put forth support toward the grant.
A match would be needed for the grant which would go toward sustaining the Main Street organization and to endow sustaining other Main Street historic preservation projects. The match would be 10 percent and would be gathered if awarded the grant.
The deadline to apply for this pilot program grant is June 18.
The town council members voted 3-1-1 in support of the grant application. Councilman Rich West abstained from the vote as he is a board member on Develop Culver, while Councilman Bill Cleavenger opposed the vote stating that if the town council was not in complete control he could not support the application.
