Four businesses sign up for new façades

The Fairfield City Council approved a couple of resolutions at its meeting Monday entering into agreements with downtown business owners who have promised to renovate their building?s façades.

The Iowa Economic Development Authority awarded the city up to $500,000 in matching grant funds through a Community Development Block Grant for business owners around the square to restore their façades. The city agreed to cover 10 percent of the total project, estimated at $1 million, making the city?s contribution $100,000.

Four businesses around the square have agreed to renovate their façades, and another seven are likely to follow, according to French-Reneker-Associates project engineer Melanie Carlson. The four who have signed on so far are India Café, the building on the northeast corner owned by Hal and Rita Schwall Goldstein housing Chickadee, the Elks building and Central Park Furnishings owned by Neil Cunningham.

After the façade improvements, each building will still be unique, Carlson said. What they will have in common is that they will share a more uniform color palette.

?The Elk?s building will still be blue, but it will be an earth-tone blue to go with the earth-tone colors on Central Park Furnishings,? she said.

Even those downtown businesses not participating in the CDBG grant program are invited to use the program?s color palette when repainting their storefronts.

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.