Greenfield on ‘tail end’ of downtown project

The Greenfield square has received a facelift over the past several months and the project making that possible is almost finished.

The west side half of the public square, specifically, has benefited aesthetically from $530,000 in grant funding the city received. Windows, front facades and other aspects of buildings needing spruced up have all been part of the project.

According to Greenfield Chamber Main Street Executive Director Stacie Eshelman, a meeting will be this week to review a punch list of items that Cornerstone Commercial Contractors of Corning has been working on.

“I’ve visited with all the property owners and developed a punch list of all the things needing finished up. Some have water issues where windows have been replaced and will need to be addressed, but so far, they’ve worked through the punch list pretty well,” Eshelman said. “I think they’ll have most everything finalized when we do our final walk through of the project.”

“We really are on the tail end of this, I think,” Mayor Brian Fox said.

Property owners were invoiced recently for their portion of the work.

This grant, through the Iowa Economic Development Authority, is funded through the federal Community Development Block Grant program. Funds may be used to rehabilitate blighted downtown buildings.

City of Greenfield officials had to support the application. In September 2022, the city council approved three measures connected to a downtown revitalization grant application: a slum and blight resolution, a definition of the project target area and acceptance of a reccomended design group that would jump start the project by evaluating various prospective facades that would receive work. The city has been a partner on the project at a financial level.

Southern Iowa Council of Governments helped complete the application. SICOG also conducted a slum and blight assessment to see how the town could target a specific area of its square because the square is in a tax increment financing district.

Slum and blight is really anything that is at the point that it needs repair.

This type of grant is the same one that was used on the Warren Cultural Center project in 2012.