Northport Offers to Match Up to $100,000 for 4 Private Facade Upgrade Projects

The city of Northport is looking for potential partners and proposed projects to fund with four facade improvement grants of up to $100,000 each.

City leaders have been committed to working with existing businesses to make their properties look better, issuing more than $340,000 in "Northport First" sales tax money in 2021 for facade improvements. On Monday night, attorney Jay Stuck said the program will return, with some fine-tuning since the last offering.

Now, the city is looking for four bigger-than-ever projects to help fund with 50/50 grants.

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Ideally, they'll give four partners $100,000 each and in return see at least $800,000 in major facade improvements around the city. The terms of the grant program identify areas that are "visible from the public rights of way Highway 69 North and South corridors from the Lurleen Wallace Blvd N and S bridges to the intersection of Highway 82 and the Highway 82 commercial corridor from the Eastern City limits to the intersection of Highway 82 and
Highway 43" as priority targets, though the funds will not necessarily be limited to projects in those areas.

Developers can apply for the grants as of Monday, and that window will close on Thanksgiving - November, 28th, 2024.

The final awards will be granted by the Northport Redevelopment Authority board consisting of chairman Steve Steele, vice chair Jaime Conger and members Kevin Almond, Jheovanny Gomez, Kayla Welch Griffin, Bruce Higginbotham and Ricky Sherrod.

The city expects the application process to be highly competitive. Developers should be prepared to submit "drawings, plans, timelines, current use and condition of the site and surrounding areas, information explaining the impact of the project on the surrounding areas, detailed estimates of the improvements, letter indicating agreement of property owner and/or lessee, and any other information the applicant believes will place their application in the most favorable position."

"I've had more people call me about this without it being in the public arena necessarily than I've ever had anything. People are interested in this," Stuck said. "I had a local developer tell me two weeks ago that this is the difference between making a project work and not."

Developers will also be required to disclose even minor conflicts of interest with any board members or city officials and make a case for the feasibility of their proposals.

Top submissions will be invited for in-person presentation before the board chooses the four grant recipients, and Stuck said because the Northport First funds come from sales tax and are reliably returning, another four projects could be funded next year, too.

To learn more, read the terms of the program and apply now, check out the Northport Redevelopment Authority's 2024 Facade Improvement Program landing page here.