The City of Monmouth is again pursuing a grant to beautify and revitalize the city square.
The Maple City has been pursuing the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program grant for the last few years in the hope to change the flow of the square and add more walk and green spaces.
Lew Steinbrecher, the City Administrator for Monmouth, tells WGIL that the application for the ITEP grant was originally going to be done last year but there was a hold up at the state… which could potentially benefit Monmouth.
“We were gearing up to submit this application last December. At that time, the program had a maximum grant reward of one million dollars. We knew that we couldn’t get the entire project done for that amount. Then they suspended it because the legislature had passed that capital bill which meant that they were going to put some additional state money in with the federal dollars.”
Previously, it was believed the project would come to $1.2M but that’s not the case anymore. Steinbrecher says that the project is estimated to be $2.85M, saying that because the grant was previously for a million dollars the project was being downscaled. Now that the grant has doubled, the city is going for the full renovation.
“So, the state has increased the maximum amount from one million to two million. And that’s why we’re going after the two million and providing $850,000 to match because we truly have a 2.8 million dollar project but we knew we could only do half of it last year, just because of the funding limits.”
The remaining $850,000 would come from the Tax Increment Finance district. A motion to authorize the use of TIF funds to meet the local match requirement was approved by the City Council on Monday.
Steinbrecher says that in addition to the square getting revitalized, Market Alley is also getting work with the project.