Oconto Falls Main Street, senior center may get makeovers

Revitalization of downtown Oconto Falls and improvements to the Senior Citizen Center are targets of state-funded grants that the city plans to seek.

The council voted unanimously July 14 in favor of Community Development Block Grant applications under the state Department of Administration’s CLOSE program.

The name refers to the closure of the former state-funded municipal revolving-fund loan programs. The state asked for the money back and is now offering grants to qualifying projects as a way of returning the funds, said Paul Ehrfurth of the Oconto County Economic Development Corp., which is helping the city with the applications.

“You sent $1.7 million back to the DOA,” Ehrfurth said. “We want to get that money back and put it in your community.”

CDBG funding is directed at projects designed to improve blighted areas of a community and projects that mostly serve low- to moderate-income residents.

One of the projects under consideration involves hiring a neighborhood consulting firm to develop a downtown revitalization plan for about 50 parcels in and near the central business district, Ehrfurth said.

“It would contain any number of recommendations regarding facade improvements, streetscaping improvements, parcels that may be suitable for redevelopment, all those kinds of things,” he said. “Nothing like this has been done in Oconto Falls since 1986.”

A recent meeting of the city’s Main Street Committee generated enthusiastic support for the idea, Ehrfurth said.

The larger project is an estimated $1.2 million renovation of the senior center, which needs “basically a complete overhaul,” City Administrator Vicki Roberts said.

“Heating, cooling; they have a water problem, they need a new elevator,” Roberts said. “It includes a drive-up to a canopy to allow people to get in and out without being out in the weather elements. A lot of (the center) is not up to code.”

The improvements will enable the senior center board to expand programs and better serve the community, Mayor Brad Rice said.

“They were going to dissolve the board and turn the center back to the city, because they can’t rent enough space there to survive,” Rice said. “With the upgrade, they can put in a serviceable elevator so they can use the basement. All they have now is a freight elevator.”

“I think it’s probably we either use the funds or lose them,” Alderman Mat McDermid said.

Ehrfurth and Roberts confirmed that these two projects were chosen after careful review of the narrow requirements of the funding program.

A public hearing about the CLOSE projects has been scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Aug. 18 at City Municipal Building, 500 N. Chestnut Ave.

wbluhm@newmedia-wi.com