By Chad Koenen

Publisher

The New York Mills Art Retreat will be getting a big boost in funding for an ongoing revitalization project in town.

During its regularly scheduled meeting last Wednesday morning, the NY Mills EDA approved a $10,000 Downtown Revitalization Grant application for the art retreat to replace windows and a facade of windows on the main level of the Cultural Center’s arts retreat. The arts retreat received $5,000 last year for windows on the upper floor of the facility, but Julie Roberts said this project is a new phase of the project and would qualify for the forgivable loan. 

So far this year the EDA has approved $50,000 as part of its Downtown Revitalization Grant project, which offers forgivable loans up to $10,000 apiece for projects in the downtown NY Mills area. The loans are forgiven on a five year sliding scale, meaning 20 percent of the loan is forgiven each year and it is fully forgiven after five years. Should a business or individual sell the property before the loan is fully forgiven, they would be responsible for paying the balance of the loan back to the EDA.

In addition to the arts retreat, the NY Mills EDA received a Downtown Revitalization Grant request from Farmer’s Daughter Rustic Bakery at the meeting, but it was unclear if funding would be available yet this year or not. Roberts said she will speak with some of the properties who received a loan earlier this year, but have yet to complete the project, to see if their funding can be used for the bakery’s project. 

As far as future years, Roberts said the city and EDA will need to decide if it wants to continue to offer the grant forgiveness program or make additional tweaks to the program as a whole. The EDA recently increased the amount of money that can be given as part of the program as a way to help spur bigger projects and interest in the program.

“We have to decide what we are going to do,” he said. “With it being the larger amount it was a much easier one to get people to apply for because they could really do some bigger projects with it.”

Funding for the program comes from the Otter Tail County CDA program that is aimed at fix up projects within the downtown business district of a community in the county.

In other news

• Heard an update from Tasha Rohlfs concerning the Otter Tail Lakes Country organization and magazine. The City of NY Mills is a platinum member of the organization and Rohlfs inquired if the city would be interested in being a member at a similar level next year. The cost of the membership is split between the city and NY Mills C&C and the EDA said it would need to check with the C&C group to see if they were interested in being a member before moving forward with the proposal.

• Heard an update on the community growth summit that was held at the end of August. Latham Hetland said the summit was well attended and the night was a good way to look at possibilities available to grow the greater NY Mills area. 

• Heard an update on the South Point project from Julie Roberts who stated the South Point apartment building is full and the county is hoping to purchase two lots in the development to construct senior housing options by the end of the year. 

• Heard construction on the Family Resource Center is underway and a number of items for the new facility have already been ordered and are being stored in the City Center building.

• Heard from Bonnie Dykhoff and Tim Muehler about the amount of businesses for sale in the community and the need to find another way to have conversations with businesses about their needs and what they would like to see in NY Mills as far as business development. Dykhoff suggested having EDA members visit with businesses in a more one-on-one or small group setting to address concerns and hopefully generate ideas on how to assist local business owners. The EDA said it will discuss the idea at a future EDA meeting.