Efforts to get a Main Street designation for Downtown Knox recently got a financial boost from the city. The city council has agreed to provide $5,000 to Knox Main Street United from the city’s Riverboat Fund.
But Mayor Dennis Estok noted that a major potential funding source is currently unavailable. He initially asked the redevelopment commission to provide the money, but then realized that its project plan doesn’t currently allow it. “We would have to amend that plan, and declaratory resolution we’d have to do, public hearing we’d have to do, run it through the planning commission and all that,” Estok explained. “It’s going to take time to do that.”
He said that will have to happen eventually, especially if Knox Main Street United becomes eligible for larger façade grants and needs a local match. “Unless you guys can get the storefront owners to come up with that, which good luck, and if we have to go to the city, that is what the redevelopment commission is about,” Estok added.
For now, the $5,000 is designed to be seed money, to help get Knox Main Street United established as a nonprofit organization. That could include things like insurance and office supplies, as well as funding support for events designed to promote the downtown and registration for April’s Main Street conference. The group is also starting to get financial and in-kind donations from the private sector.
Meanwhile, the city council also agreed to match the redevelopment commission’s $6,000 contribution for holiday decorations, using a combination of Riverboat and Economic Development Income Tax revenues. Estok said the $12,000 would get the city about eight more pieces for the Wythogan Park area. “We kind of do want to make that, when people come in and even when we have our Peppermint Parade and the Santa Claus down there and all of that, that we have a lot of the stand-ups, where people can go and the kids because they’re fascinated by all that,” Estok said. “So we kind of want to make that like a showcase for the kids and all of that.”
He noted that decorations are expensive, but buying a few every year has been adding up to make a big impact.
