Sixteenth address added to façade list

The 16th and final address in the downtown that will receive a renovated façade was added to the list Monday during the Fairfield City Council meeting.

Morning Star Studio on the east side of the square became the eighth property whose exterior will be remodeled next year thanks in part to a $500,000 grant from the Iowa Economic Development Authority. Property owners will cover 38 percent of the cost, and the grant plus the city?s contribution will cover the rest. The city agreed to cover 10 percent of the total project cost, which will be just shy of $1 million.

Project engineer Melanie Carlson of French-Reneker-Associates said Morning Star Studio?s decision to participate in the façade renovations means the project will move forward, since the city now has the minimum number of participating properties to meet the grant?s requirements.

The grant will cover eight properties encompassing 16 addresses in all. The council has been adding properties to the list gradually, a few at a time during its last several council meetings. The list of downtown businesses that will be refurbished in 2016 is:

? Morning Star Studio;

? India Café (including neighboring building U.S. Cellular, owned by India Café);

? Hal and Rita Schwall Goldstein?s building on the northeast corner housing Chickadee;

? Central Park Furnishings owned by Neil Cunningham;

? The Elks building;

? Davis and Palmer Real Estate;

? Brown Law Office (including State Farm); and

? ERA Real Estate

Carlson said the work on the façades might mean reduced parking in front of the buildings.

?There might be some scaffolding up that you have to walk under, but the businesses should be able to remain open during construction,? she said. 

Improvements to the façades should begin in the spring and continue through next summer and fall, when the work will be finished. Carlson said the businesses will be renovated one at a time, meaning each business might have scaffolding outside it for a month or so during construction.

After renovation, the refurbished businesses will share a more uniform color palette. For instance, the Elk?s building is being repainted an earth-tone blue to match the earth-tone colors on Central Park Furnishings.

The council also discussed how it should replace a broken light pole on Dogwood Drive in the southwest part of town.

Ordinarily, the city would use wood to replace its light poles. Alliant Energy, the firm responsible for replacing broken light poles, informed the city that the light poles on Dogwood Drive are different from others in town.

The Fairfield Economic Development Association collaborated with the city to develop the subdivision on Dogwood Drive in the 1990s. To make the area more attractive to homebuyers, the utilities lines were buried instead of being put on light poles. Fiberglass was used for the light poles instead of the typical wood.

Alliant Energy requested that it be allowed to replace the light pole with wood since it has wooden poles on hand. Councilor Michael Halley said he brought the issue to the council?s attention in the event the councilors did not want one pole mismatching the others in the neighborhood. He suggested that if the neighbors want the more expensive fiberglass pole, the homeowners? association could pay the difference between the fiberglass pole and the wooden pole so the city would incur no additional expenses.

The council took no action on the matter Monday.