La. Main Street offers grants for rehabilitation of commercial buildings

BATON ROUGE – The Louisiana Main Street Program was one of nine projects nationwide to receive grant funding through the Historic Revitalization Subgrant Program (HRSP).
The National Park Service, which oversees the HRSP grants, awarded Louisiana Main Street $662,000 for the rehabilitation and revitalization of commercial buildings around the state. Grant awards in the amount of $55,000 each will be given to owners or tenants of historic buildings located within officially designated Louisiana Main Street districts. Grants are available for either interior or exterior building rehabilitation projects.
To be eligible for the HRSP funds, a building must be located within a Louisiana Main Street district in a community with less than 50,000 population. The building must also be either individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places or a contributing element in a National Register Historic District. In addition, buildings that are eligible for either of these National Register designations but not currently designated can qualify. All proposed rehabilitation work must comply with The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation.
Deadline: Grant applications must be submitted online through the Submittable platform no later than for the grant cycle no later than March 31, 3021. Paper applications will not be accepted. Matching Funds: This grant requires a $5,000
monetary match toward hard costs. Matching dollars must be used for actual construction/restoration hard costs only. Contributions of design work or other sweat equity, equipment, etc., are encouraged, but are regarded as in-kind and cannot be used as fulfillment of the match requirement for the purpose of this grant.
This is a reimbursement grant: The grant award will be paid only upon completion of the work described in the approved scope of work that will be outlined in the grant agreement to be executed upon selection of the grant recipients. All grant-funded work must comply with:  The scope of work outlined in the grant agreement  The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation
Issuance of a Certificate of Appropriateness (COA) by your local historic district commission does not guarantee that the proposed scope of work meets The Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation. Louisiana Main Street may amend the proposed scope of work to ensure compliance with the Standards. Project Review Prior to Start of Construction: Grant recipients must meet with Louisiana Main Street staff or its designated representatives at the building site to discuss the Scope of Work and any design needs prior to beginning of construction.
Please contact, Charlene Beckett, Abbeville Main Street Manager, for more information: 337-652-2239 or email: abbevillemainstreet@cox-internet.com.
This project is supported through a grant from the Historic Revitalization Subgrant Program as administered by the National Park Service, Department of Interior.