Union City, Tennessee is receiving $100,000 in state grants to beautify and restore historic downtown buildings.
The grant comes from the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development.
Main Street Union City Director Kristi Townes says building owners can apply to pay for projects including façade and exterior building work.
“All downtowns are historic places, in my opinion, and ours is on the historic register, it’s a historic block," said Townes. "As you know, all old buildings take a lot of upkeep. It can be brickworks, it can be paint, new doors, new awnings.”
Townes says she’s seen a trend of patrons returning to revitalized downtowns across the country and this money will help support that in Union City.
“We’d love to bring shoppers down here, we have some new businesses and some new shops down here," said Townes. "There’s a trend of people going back to downtown and small businesses have kinda taken a comeback so we want make downtown pretty to bring shoppers downtown.”
The money is a 75/25 matching grant, meaning business owners will have to raise 25% of the project cost and the rest will be fulfilled by the state.
Townes says owners have until June 15th to apply. Applications are available at the Main Street office
