As an incentive to downtown business owners, the city of Shawnee is trying to help them out and keep the downtown area looking nice.
On Tuesday, the city of Shawnee announced its Downtown Improvement Program.
“It’s a financial incentive just to encourage business and property owners downtown to make exterior improvements to their properties,” City of Shawnee’s neighborhood planner, Lauren Grashoff said.
The program has been around since 2003, helping both downtown business owners and the city of Shawnee to improve downtown area.
“We have five $5,000 grants and then unlimited grants for $2,000,” Grashoff said. “The five $5,000 grants, those are first come first serve. Those actually, usually almost every year get used up. We have people in the door at 8 a.m.”
Business owners, like Dan Pflumm, was one of those people who applied Tuesday morning.
“We're hoping to put in some glass garage doors in the front of the building to make it accessible to the sidewalk out there and have like a seating area out there for the coffee shop,” he said.
Hoping to extend the coffee shop and add more tenants to his building, Pflumm says the city's incentive will help out parts of his building that's been around since the early 1900s.
“It gets people to kind of reinvest into our downtown area and gets things going in the right direction,” Pflumm said.
Once a business or property owner applies, they can reapply for another grant after five years.
Kathy Peterson is one of the business owners at Heartland Seatings. She received a downtown improvement grant last year, getting new awnings for the building.
“This is our first year downtown and what a great way to help us keep the image up,” she said. “You have to take care of the facility you're in, especially if you've invested in it and you've invested in downtown Shawnee. And it was really great for them to kind of do a little handshake back as in thank you for investing in us and it's a partnership.”
From parking lots to new windows, the grant can be used on a variety of different areas.
“After the improvements are completed, we do reimburse them once they submit receipts,” Grashoff said. “It can be materials, it can be services costs, it can be labor costs, and we do reimburse them at the end once the improvements have been completed.”
Grashoff says the program is funded through the city’s General Fund.
Applications are accepted through January 15. They are available at Shawnee City Hall and online.
Rae Daniel can be reached at Rae.Daniel@KSHB.com.
