City awarding façade improvement grants

Published 6:00 pm Thursday, May 28, 2015

Historic buildings, one-of-a kind buildings, wonderful family-owned and compelling businesses.

Such abound in Auburn, which is why the City is awarding façade improvement grants to facilitate exterior building improvements for businesses within the designated Business Improvement Area during 2015 and 2016.

Called the Downtown Façade Improvement Grant Program, the project aims to preserve and enhance the charm of the downtown commercial area through strategic physical improvements to buildings. These property upgrades will improve the area’s overall visual appearance and hopefully, attract business, visitors and residents. The primary goal of the grants is to improve the appearance and feel of the City’s commercial, pedestrian-oriented core.

Recipients must be property owners or business lessees with written authorization of the property owner, all projects must meet code requirements, follow all local and state laws and all current design standards. Each site must be within the BIA and dues must be current, with no restrictions to site and no current code violations.

Recipients must have no more than 25 full time employees and cannot be in excess of 25,000 square feet of ground floor area.

The focus on the upgrades varies based on the category of the improvement, starting with improvements that can be done for less than $5,000, many of which do not require

construction documents provided by an independent architect or engineer and focus on immediate, eye-catching changes, such as painting, decorative lighting, signage awnings, permanent, affixed building decorative elements, enhancements or changes to trim materials of the building.

To learn more, visit www.auburnwa.gov.