Façade improvements making a difference
Total value of improvements – most of which has come from businesses – believed to be more than $1.5 million
Evidence of the positive impact the Town of Yarmouth’s façade program has had on the area is easy to see – given the many examples of improvements that have taken place in the downtown – but there’s another benefit that, while less obvious to the general public, has been noted by at least some of the program’s participants.
Gil Dares, spokesman for the Yarmouth Façade Society, says façade projects can help attract people to a business’s location.
In the four years since the program was launched, 69 applications for façade improvement projects have been approved and 62 have been completed.
Dares cited the latest numbers at a recent Yarmouth town council meeting, where he said the façade society was asking the town for $75,000 for the coming year.
Dares got a positive response, council members – including the mayor – saying the façade program has been great for the town.
Under the program, participants can receive grants of up to $5,000 to help them with their façade improvement projects. Grants are issued once the work is complete.
In an interview, Dares said society members are pleased with what has been accomplished since the group was formed in the fall of 2014.
“People have caught on to the idea,” he said. “Business owners are saying ‘yeah, you know what, this is really working.’ And some business owners have actually seen an increase in traffic. They’ve seen more people coming into their business
than they did before they had done the improvements, so that speaks volumes.”
Of the 69 applications that have been approved, seven are underway, pending completion.
Fourteen projects were completed this year, Dares said, and the society knows of 14 others that are on the way or that perhaps are in the process of applying.
As of the end of October, the society had – over four years – approved $284,000 in grants to help applicants with their improvement projects. The total value of building improvements for the same period (most of which comes from businesses) is believed to be more than $1.5 million.
The society has had the same seven members since it was launched. The group has support from Natalie Smith, economic development officer for the Town of Yarmouth.
Mayor Pam Mood says the town is grateful for the society’s work.
“The façade program has helped turn things around in our downtown,” she said, adding it goes beyond putting on a nice coat of paint. She cites the period not that long ago when many downtown storefronts were empty.
“When we start to aesthetically make things look better, there’s more confidence in opening that business, in purchasing that property, and we have seen that ... downtown is now a place people want to set up a business. And perhaps most important, people want to shop downtown and they want to come downtown and have their coffee and all those pieces, so it’s completely reinvigorated the heart of the town.”