An important state individual recently visited the downtown square in Jefferson to tour various renovation projects.
Jefferson Matters Executive Director Matt Wetrich says Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham was joined by Jefferson Matters leadership and other community leaders for a three hour tour where she saw how grants from IEDA were leveraged for different projects. Wetrich points out the stops that were made last Wednesday included the exterior facade renovation with Art on the Fly and Re-Max Legacy, along with total building facades improvements to several buildings on Chestnut Street, Warm Wishes and City View Apartments, The Public House with upper story apartments, and one space that was of particular interest.
“We also got to show her projects that we were overly excited about like Imagination Alley on the west side. Showed her the new augmented reality feature of that, and really she was just blown away by this project we have going on over there, and raved, and raved about it. You know at the end of the three hours of here as she was getting into her car and she just revisited that thought again, she said, ‘Okay, but that alleyway project, I gotta tell ya…’ you know she just went on and on about that, so I know we made a great impression.”
Wetrich notes that since 2013 Jefferson Matters has received $7.3 million in IEDA grants that were leveraged into $18 million of projects. Wetrich explains that those figures didn’t happen by accident.
“The neat thing is we have seen a strong response when we apply to different grants. We feel that the amount of times that we get awarded, partial or entire grant requests from them or different financial programming through the state, we feel like we’ve seen an uptick in that response from them because of the proof in the pudding that we provide. And that’s part of what was fun about her being here is that we really got to showcase that.”
One of the final stops on the tour was the future outlook of the former Homestead Bakery building that Wetrich believes could be another IEDA grant-funded project.