News Release

Charles City building owners in the downtown district have an opportunity to apply for a 2018 Main Street Iowa Challenge Grant to assist with bricks and mortar rehabilitation of buildings or new construction within the designated district. This would be a matching grant up to $75,000 toward an approved project.

Through an appropriation from the Iowa legislature, Main Street Iowa will be awarding a total of $925,000 in grants this year.  Grants are available only to designated Main Street Iowa communities across the State of Iowa, of which Charles City is included through the Community Revitalization program.

“Charles City has had some good success in the past in applying for Challenge Grant funding and this is a great opportunity to apply for some assistance in helping to repair or improve our downtown buildings,” said Community Development Director Mark Wicks. “This is a dollar-for-dollar matching grant, so building owners will have to have some skin in the game so to speak. In-kind assistance, while encouraged for each project, will not count against the dollar-for-dollar match requirement.”

He added that there may be some other local incentives through Community Revitalization and the City of Charles City that could possibly be utilized to assist with the local match end of things.

Challenge grant amounts awarded will vary between a minimum of $15,000 and maximum of $75,000, based on the project scoring and available funding. This will be a competitive grant process and communities can only submit one project application. If more than one local project application is submitted to Community Revitalization, a committee will review them and select the one it feels will be the most competitive and have the best chance of being funded.

Charles City’s selected application must be submitted to the state online by Community Revitalization. Local applications must be in the Community Revitalization office at 401 North Main St. by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018. The state has tentatively set Nov. 8, 2018, as the date to announce the grant recipients, who will then have 24 months in which to complete their projects.

For more information and details about the Main Street Iowa Challenge Grant, please contact Wicks at the Community Revitalization office, call (641) 228-2335 or email him at mark@charlescitychamber.com.