 Portland's facade improvement program offers grants of up to $20,000 for businesses looking to upgrade their storefronts. At a recent workshop about the program, Brian Nal Block talked with Nell Hanig, the city's business program manager, about the ways in which business owners can get help to improve their properties. The purpose of the program is to strengthen the streetscape, particularly in the targeted area, which is Conger Street between Weymouth and Washington Street. And why was that area chosen? Well, we expanded on the area for Round One, which was the downtown area between Franklin and Longfellow Square. And we wanted to extend it out to give others an opportunity to take part in grants to help improve their buildings. Our focus though is certainly continuing to strengthen downtown as well as the areas adjacent to it. And what cover assistance is available through these grants? We'll be providing grants of up to $20,000 for storefront improvements and up to $2,000 for improvements for new signs and awnings. And there's an overall cap of $90,000 for the entire project. So how do you choose which ones that you're going to pick? We have a list of criteria from which to choose. Primarily, we're going to go with those projects that will have the greatest impact on enhancing the streetscape, are the most visual, and will be taking their buildings to the best result we can get, people who will be interested and willing to invest, their private funds to match the grant to really make a difference in the building. And what kind of information do they need to have in their proposal? Do they need detailed architectural plans and drawings, that sort of thing? No, we've made it very, very simple. They need to describe their project, tell us what their goal is. We'd like a photograph of the building that they're talking about, a very close up photograph to show us the current conditions of the building. And we'd like a sketch if they can do that. It can be a pretty simple sketch. They don't need to hire an architect to do it. We just want a sense of what they have in mind. Once we review the applications that come in, we'll determine which seem like the strongest grant applications. And at that point, we will sit down with those applicants and really talk specifics about exactly what they're going to want to do, the value that they place on it in terms of cost, if the costs are feasible, and then make a determination as to which projects will be the likely, will receive grants. The grant process is open now. When do the applications have to be in? The applications are due October 19th, I believe. That's about a month from today. This program was launched a few weeks ago. So people have had about, will have had about six weeks. But because the applications are not asking for a great deal of work, we're not asking to them to work with an architect and provide full designs for a rehab project. We feel that it's a fair amount of time. Historic preservation program manager Deborah Andrews showed the audience some examples of good storefront design. The storefront is often kind of bracketed by strong peers. Oftentimes, traditionally, they were cast iron or granite or something. Then a large display window, and that's one of the problems you see that's happened over time where the display window got smaller and smaller, and really isn't working effectively for the property owner. Oftentimes, there's a recessed entry, which was for very practical purposes of letting people, you know, step off the street, and it also provided additional window opportunity on either side of the door. We are basically trying to encourage people to return to traditional storefront design principles. That's not to say they necessarily have to recreate an historic storefront, but there's certain tried and true storefront design principles that have been found to work in any number of styles and in any number of design periods. You know, high level of glazing, oftentimes a recessed entrance and effective signage program, signs that don't overwhelm the building itself, but do the job effectively. That's the kind of thing that we're encouraging. We've got lots of good models to direct people to. So in addition to being able to improve their storefront for a business purpose, it also provides them an opportunity to sort of return the storefront to what it should be in terms of the designs. Is that right? Right. It's to an appearance that works with the upper portion of the building, but also one, an effective storefront really helps the business be successful in that it gives high visibility to the products inside, attractive signage, well constructed details. We're really interested in helping them, you know, put their business to best advantage through good design principles.