Belfast awarded $500,000 for downtown revitalization

Belfast, Maine - The City of Belfast has received notification that it has been awarded a $500,000 grant under the Community Development Block Grant Downtown Revitalization program.  Belfast was the only community in the entire State of Maine to receive funds under the Downtown Revitalization program during this year’s grant cycle.

These funds will be used to pay for streetscape and infrastructure improvements (such as on-street parking, sidewalks, lighting, stormwater, signage, and landscaping) in a 6.5-acre area of downtown Belfast that is bordered by Cross, Federal, Front, and Miller Streets.  The goal of this project is to improve connectivity between the commercial core of downtown Belfast and the City’s downtown parks, as well as to stimulate future development and redevelopment in the project area.  The City of Belfast will be matching this grant with approximately $300,000 in other grant funding and new tax revenues.

According to Belfast Mayor Walter Ash, “this grant award shows that the City is moving things along in the right direction as regards to improving our downtown area, and it shows that Belfast is being recognized as a community that is getting things done when it comes to economic development.”

Thomas Kittredge, Economic Development Director for the City of Belfast, added, “Belfast should be extremely proud that it obtained this very competitive grant on its very first application to the program.  The Belfast City Council should be commended for several things that ultimately made our application successful: commissioning a downtown-waterfront master plan, which provided the basis for the proposed project; designing (and eventually building) the Belfast Harbor Walk, which will complement and connect to the proposed project; and for designating the project area as ‘slum and blight’ last year, which allowed the City to be able to apply to this grant program.  In addition, other area economic development entities and our individual downtown businesses also played a pivotal role, by lending their considerable support to this project and by providing additional input that we utilized in developing the final application.”

Belfast will now move on to completing the project development phase for this grant, which will include further outreach to the public and the downtown business community in order to solicit input that will help in refining the proposed project, which is expected to be built in the spring of 2013.