Smithtown offers $20G grants to downtown businesses to update their look
Shops on Main Street in Smithtown. A new town program is intended to give a “facelift to beautify the downtown areas” by encouraging new investments in materials and items like doors, windows, awnings, walkways and improvements to access for the disabled, the town spokeswoman said. Credit: Danielle Silverman
Smithtown officials are offering $250,000 in facade improvement grants for business and property owners in the town’s downtown business districts.
The program is intended to give a “facelift to beautify the downtown areas” by encouraging new investments in materials and items like doors, windows, awnings, walkways and improvements to access for the disabled, town spokeswoman Nicole Garguilo said at a Tuesday town board meeting.
The town will cover 75% of spending for each project, up to $20,000. Funding comes from the first tranche of town funding through the American Rescue Plan Act, part of a federal COVID-19 stimulus package that sent Smithtown a total of $11.4 million. The town spent most of the first portion on infrastructure, parks and COVID-related projects, Supervisor Edward Wehrheim said. Officials will finalize plans for the second disbursement in coming weeks.
Similar projects have yielded good results in Mineola, Farmingdale and Southampton, said Allyson Murray, Smithtown’s principal planner, in an interview.
“We do believe there will be a number of business owners that will take advantage” of the grant program, Smithtown Supervisor Edward R. Wehrheim said of the effort to spruce up business facades. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
Wehrheim said officials hope the grant program will encourage a spate of relatively minor improvements before the major work they expect will accompany two New York State-funded $20 million sewer construction projects in Kings Park and Smithtown, along with hookup of a St. James line that is already built. Completion of those projects is years away. The Kings Park system is expected to come online in spring 2025. The Smithtown system is not as far along, but Suffolk County legislators on Wednesday approved purchase of land the system will need for leaching fields.
“We do believe there will be a number of business owners that will take advantage” of the grant program, Wehrheim said. In July, leaders of the nonprofit Smithtown Performing Arts Council, which owns the historic downtown Smithtown theater, told Newsday they would likely apply for a grant.
One possible use for the grant, they said: renovation of the 1933 building’s large illuminated marquee, a project they said will require 200 lightbulbs.
