Giving Downtown Kitchener A Facelift One Business at a Time

This article is taken from
http://news.therecord.com/News/Local/article/672483

Here at Sign Depot we knew the impact this would make (see http://thesigndepot.blogspot.com/2009/08/just-letting-you-know-what-impact-your.html )

Facade program giving downtown a facelift

Philip Walker
Mario Halapir, owner of Sportslink, took advantage of Kitchener's cash program to upgrade the facade of his store.


February 18, 2010 By Melinda Dalton, Record staff
KITCHENER — Behind the sleek new sign and the strikingly modern stucco lays the bones of a building that has watched over Kitchener’s downtown for nearly a century.
With its modern facelift, Mario Halapir’s soccer retail store and uniform business, Sports Link, shows little sign of its age. But what it does show, Halapir hopes, is his commitment to the business and the city’s core.
“With the economy the way it is right now, everyone’s thinking about saving dollars,” he said. “We thought about it the other way around. We said, ‘We’re going to invest some money into our business so we can be here forever.’ ”
The Sports Link façade improvement is the largest completed project in the city’s granting program, which matches exterior improvement dollars for commercial businesses in the downtown.
The city will pay up to $10,000 per storefront for approved projects. In total, Kitchener has $600,000 to hand out over the five years of the program.
In 2009, the city approved grants totalling $175,000. The private investment portion of those projects will equal about $375,000 since some businesses exceed the maximum amount that could be matched, said Cory Bluhm, the city’s urban investment adviser.
The program launched last year, replacing a façade loan initiative the city set up a decade earlier. Since transitioning to a grant program, interest from the local business community has picked up, said Bluhm.
“This is the most value per grant you can get from any other municipality,” he said. “We did that on purpose.”
Brantford started up a similar grant program in 2009, but they cap their grant at $9,500 and the city only awards a maximum of $50,000 per year. Kitchener has $125,000 to fund projects in 2010 and $100,000 for the remaining three years after that. That money comes from a fund the city had previously set up to finance the loan program.
Waterloo offers an interest-free loan program for façade upgrades, but the city doesn’t match investment. Cambridge has a hybrid loan-grant program that allows businesses to take up to 35 per cent of their total approved loan, usually between $5,000 and $20,000, as a grant. That program has been in place for at least a decade, but hasn’t been well used of late, said Trevor McWilliams, a senior planner with the city.
In its inaugural year, 10 businesses were approved for grants in the Kitchener program. Four projects, including DNA silk screening, two storefronts at the Tannery, Matter of Taste and Sports Link, are now completed. Two more King Street projects are close to completion.
Sports Link, located on the corner of Charles and Ontario streets, made $80,000 worth of improvements to its façade, including upgrades to the windows, signage and all new stucco.
“We had been planning on doing renovations on the building, but when the program came out, I thought ‘What a great opportunity,’ ” said Halapir. “Instead of piecemealing it like we probably would have done because we couldn’t afford everything, we used the grant money to finish everything the way we wanted to do it all at once.”
The building was the old Oktoberfest headquarters before Sports Link moved in upstairs. They later took over the ground floor as retail space and have been making upgrades as they go. The new façade gives the building a dramatic new look and has been attracting a significant amount of attention, Bluhm said.
“We’ve heard so many people say, ‘We didn’t know that existed. When did he come?’ ” he said. “He’s been there 15 years.”
The façade program is aimed at businesses within the area bordered by the railway tracks on the west to Cedar Street on the east, and Joseph Street on the south to Weber Street on the north. Of the 10 projects approved last year, seven are on King Street.
“Right now, there’s a lot of mismatching going on,” Matter of Taste co-owner Phong Tran said of the storefronts on King. “Overall, I think if everybody pitches in and does their own, I think it will make this area look nicer.”
The 2010 deadline has passed and the city is working with business owners on nine new projects. If some drop off in the screening process, they’ll make those grants available again on a first come, first served basis.
There’s no deadline for the work to be completed, but the businesses don’t get reimbursed until all the work is done.
In the end, the city would like to see a downtown that flows and is inviting, while ensuring it gets the most bang for its buck, said Bluhm.
“The goal is to actually execute 60 high-quality projects. Sixty done over this downtown will mean a real improvement.”
mdalton@therecord.com

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