City council approves GEIC facade grant for businesses

The Graham City Council Thursday approved the creation and implementation of a Facade Improvement Grant from the Graham Economic Improvement Corporation as a way to assist business owners and help beautify the community.

The GEIC collects ¼ of a cent of the city of Graham’s sales taxes for economic development and ¼ of a cent of city of Graham’s sales taxes for ad valorem tax reduction. The organization is governed by a board appointed by the Graham City Council.

According to an overview of the grant, the GEIC is encouraging property owners to make exterior improvements through the financial incentive grant which seeks to increase interest in reusing existing buildings and recruiting new businesses and services. The program will target business and commercial districts in the city for improvements such as store signage, lighting, awnings, windows, building fronts, and other improvements defined by the GEIC.

“This is something that has been attempted in the past, but I’d like to resurrect this and make this something that is available to anyone that has a business in the city limits, so that we can start seeing some significant improvements to the front of our buildings,” Graham Economic Development Corporation Director Grant Ingram said. “Primarily, I believe the focus will be downtown, but I did not want to limit anyone outside of that realm to gain access to this. It is a $5,000 maximum grant. It is a 50% matching (grant). So for somebody to spend $10,000, they would be reimbursed through the GEIC $5,000. So we would be a 50% matching grant for the facade improvements.”

For the full story, see the Saturday, April 16 edition of The Graham Leader.