Mt. Morris seeking $1.8 million grant to revitalize business side of downtown

MT. MORRIS — The business side of downtown Mt. Morris could be getting a makeover in the not-so-distant future if the village is awarded a state grant.

Mt. Morris is seeking $1.8 million from the Rebuild Illinois Main Street and Downtown Capital program and plans to commit $100,000 of its own funds for the streetscape project, village President Phil Labash said at the Jan. 11 village board meeting.

“We’ve invested a lot of time and effort on the campus side,” Labash said. “The reality is, I would like to see a similar investment on the business side of the street.”

The proposed project calls for redoing the roads, water and sewer lines, curbs and gutters and looking to extend street lighting past the Mt. Morris Senior Center toward the library, he said. They also want to include sidewalk improvements, such as widening the sidewalk on the business side of the street, doing some decorative inlays and adding trees and planters that would tie in with the campus.

The Rebuild Illinois Main Street and Downtown Capital program is part of $1.5 billion authorized by the state’s fiscal year 2022 budget to help jump-start economic recovery from COVID-19, according to a Sept. 10 press release from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. DCEO oversees the grant.

“The goal of this project is to drive investment in infrastructure and public amenities that will invite more people back into Main Street districts, and local city centers,” the press release reads.

There are $50 millions available and grant amounts can range from $250,000 to $3 million, said Corey Buck, vice president and general manager of Willett, Hofmann & Associates’ Sterling office.

“Our grant is right in the middle at about $2 million,” said Buck, who assisted the village in the grant application process. “The reason that the village decided to chip in $100,000 is that, while there is no matching requirement, you’re looked favorably upon if you match a little bit. So we put in 5% of the project.”

Grant applications were due Jan. 10, he said. They were told it will be about three months before winners are announced, Buck said.

“If we get this grant, I believe it would be transformative to our downtown,” Labash said.

“We know we’ve got expansion happening in our downtown,” he added. “We’ve spent or committed almost $700,000 in TIF [tax increment finance] funds to redevelopment of our downtown. Almost every active business in the downtown has applied for and received some type of TIF grant, and that is resulting in a lot of improvements happening with the buildings downtown.”

Some of those improvements are visible and some are more behind-the-scenes type things, like putting new roofs on a building, Labash said.

“This would be our commitment as a village to the downtown business district saying, ‘We’re there. We get it and we support the work that you’re doing,’” he said.