In last month's newsletter, we mentioned a new partnership with Indiana Humanities which has produced a new grant program: Preserving Women’s Legacy. The goal is to catalyze Main Street communities to discover, preserve, and activate locations that tell stories about women’s contributions in Indiana.
This grant pool will be offered exclusively to Indiana Main Street communities. Grant funding will focus on projects promoting or preserving the legacy of women’s history in Indiana Main Street communities. Full grant details and guidelines will be announced on March 10, 2020. For the most up-to-date information, register for the Indiana Women’s Suffrage Centennial newsletter online here.
 Photo courtesy of Indiana Arts Commission and Tippecanoe Arts Federation.
Artists, arts organizations, arts activities, and other cultural goods and services are a key component of quality of life. When these “cultural assets” are integrated into the public spaces and become an everyday part of communities, it’s called creative placemaking. Creative placemaking can make a space safer, healthier, more beautiful, and interesting and more fun!
That’s why this year, the Indiana Arts Commission teamed up with OCRA to provide additional funding for Quick Impact Placebased grants. The IAC will provide additional funding to support public art projects that meet the following funding priorities:
- Main Street must be lead applicant;
- Located in a county with a population of 50,000 or less;
- Has never been a grantee of the IAC;
- The public art project involves an artist(s), with at least some project funds directed to support their effort; and,
- First (or one of the first) public art initiatives in the community.
Want to make your application even more competitive? Partner with an artist, arts organization, or arts provider in the planning stage and we’ll give your project top priority.
The project funding range is $2,500 to $5,000 and for every dollar in grant funds awarded, 50 cents must be matched, via cash or in-kind, by the applicant. All program information is now available including an instructional video. Please contact your respective community liaison to discuss project eligibility and competitiveness. Applications are due March 6.
Five of the pilot IMPACT communities will participate in a IMPACT Ideas Sessions on March 13 and April 8 at Indiana Landmarks. These sessions are a hands-on experience designed to help communities address a challenge or pursue an opportunity in downtown.
Here’s how it works. Each community has identified three relevant downtown challenges or opportunities, ones associated with economic vitality and the built environment—directly or indirectly. Examples include a building rehab, improved streetscapes, better connectivity, integrated public spaces, bolstering sense of pride in place, etc. The identified challenges or opportunities should be based on data, including community feedback gathered from the IMPACT process. One of three challenges/opportunities were assigned to each community to ensure diversity in scope and alignment with available expertise. Then, each community created a team of up to three members including the Main Street executive director/board director or designee, a high ranking community official in a leadership position, and one more designee at the community’s discretion.
Below is the list of each participating community and the selected topic:
- Dillsboro: gateway, access to downtown.
- La Porte: Farmers Market plaza, surrounding redevelopment/connectivity potential;
- Seymour: TBD;
- Sullivan: Rehab/reuse of old gym property;
- Tipton: Infill development of empty downtown parking lot including potential use as public space.
 Thank you to Downtown Angola Coalition (top) and Discover Downtown Franklin (bottom) for setting aside time to celebrate recently being named one of the 2019 Best of Indiana Main Streets, sponsored by the Indiana Office of Tourism.
During the last round of Community Development Block Grants, two communities were awarded $600,000 Main Street Revitalization grants for downtown façade improvement and streetscapes.
The City of Logansport will use the grant funding to restore eight buildings façades in the two historic districts within the city’s Main Street district. The project will address blighted building conditions, restore original and historical façade features, and create a more aesthetic appearance within the Main Street district to improve quality of place.
The City has a long history of downtown planning and implementing community development projects dating back to the creation of the Main Street organization in 1996. Together with contributions from the city, the Redevelopment Commission, Logan’s Landing, and the building owners, an estimated $995,650 will be spent on improvements. With the completion of the project, every building on the 300 block of Market Street will be restored.
The Town of Remington will use the grant funding to replace sidewalks and curbs along North and South Railroad Street with decorative crosswalks/sidewalks which connect parking to local businesses. Both Streets will be repaved, and additional seating areas will be added around the Remington Depot, as well as street trees and improved pedestrian crossings.
According to Town Manager Jonathon Cripe, the town and the Mainstreet Committee has hopes to extend the project further down the Ohio Street corridor, but there are no plans for that right now.
"We are very excited to partner with OCRA on the streetscape," he said. "A lot of time and energy was spent planning this to make sure we got it done right. We look forward to making the depot area more dynamic and pedestrian friendly.”
For further information on these grant, contact the assigned Community Liaison for your region.
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