At Tuesday night’s meeting, the City Commission approved an agreement with Polis: Cultural Planning for a historic survey of Newton’s downtown.
The consultant will survey the physical description, condition, historical significance, and changes over time to the downtown district’s 250 buildings. This will include buildings on Main Street as well as side streets between Plum and Oak in the Central Business District.
The process beginning this spring will include outreach to property owners and businesses downtown as well as public meetings to share information about the process and findings.
Downtown has two national historic districts separated by the BNSF Railway crossing that include buildings only along Main Street. This survey will provide a recommendation about possibly expanding the historic districts to include a larger area of downtown. Some building owners outside the current districts have expressed interest in exploring historic status in order to benefit from incentives such as historic tax credits for building improvements.
A Historic Preservation Fund grant from the State Historic Preservation Office will pay for $30,000 of the $33,000 contract.
The Commission voted to deny a request to forgive a portion of a loan used for the development of Lincoln Park Apartments. In 2002, the City received Community Development Block Grant funds from the Kansas Department of Commerce that were issued as a loan to MetroPlains Management to help finance the redevelopment of Lincoln School into income-qualified apartments. The company has since paid about $6,000 on the $200,000 loan. In December 2023, Gary Stenson, chief manager of MetroPlains, asked the City Commission to consider forgiving $94,900 of the loan.
Commissioners said they were not interested in granting forgiveness when the City could potentially use those funds for other projects to benefit the community.
|
- Approved plans and specifications for traffic signal improvements at East First and Spencer and set a bid date of 11 a.m. March 7. The project will be bonded with special assessments from QuikTrip paying 1/3 of the costs and the City paying 2/3.
- Approved a master agreement with airport consultant HNTB Corp. and approved a task order for pavement design and cost analysis for Runway 8-26. The total for this task order is $64,340.42, 90% of which ($57,906) will be covered by a future federal design grant offer from the FAA. The local share ($6,434.42) will be split evenly by the City and Harvey County.
- Approved a request to close Athletic Park Circle on May 4 for the Battle of the Schools 1-Mile Fun Run.
- Approved a request to close Main Street on May 4 for the Newton Car Show.
- Approved amended agreements with the Cities of North Newton and Walton to provide building inspection services on a fee basis.
- Updated the Aviation Commission requirements and reappointed Jim Wiens.
For more information, please contact Communications Director Erin McDaniel at 316-284-6055 or emcdaniel@newtonkansas.com.
|
