A pair of old downtown Waukegan buildings will soon be receiving an exterior facelift, improving their appearance from the street, as the city continues to offer incentives to businesses and not-for-profit organizations in the community.
Already undergoing a $5 million interior renovation, The Community Works now has an additional $50,000 to make its exterior more attractive. Co-founder and Executive Director Yvette Ewing looks forward to the new look.
“We really need a facelift,” she said. “We have peeling paint, and we want people to feel welcome as they enter. From the street, people really don’t know what we are.”
The Community Works, the Merchants Block Building and Anastasia’s sports bar and grill became the initial recipients of the city’s Commercial Façade Improvement Grant Program in late June to enhance the exterior look of commercial buildings in Waukegan.
Approved in March, the city established the $500,000 grant program to help individual owners of commercial buildings improve the facades of their structures. Recipients must pay $20% of the cost of the improvement. and the city will add 80%, up to $50,000.
Noelle Kischer-Lepper, the city’s director of planning and zoning, said the city’s portion of the money comes from COVID-relief funds the city received during the coronavirus pandemic. Mayor Ann Taylor said the property owners’ contributions are important.
“This is a way to help small business owners spruce up their stores, especially downtown,” she said. “This is important in a place like Waukegan, where business owners need some help. They have to have some skin in the game.”
With three grants awarded and the maximum $50,000, at least $350,000 remains for businesses or organizations that want to take advantage of the program, according to city documents. The deadline to apply is Nov 1.
Both the Merchants Block Building and The Community Works are in downtown Waukegan, near the corner of Genesee and Water streets, where many of the buildings are older. Anastasia’s is near the Lakehurst shopping center.
Built in the 1930s, Ewing said the building currently has two doors, with the one on the left leading to administrative offices and the entrance on the right going to the area devoted to workforce development, including a recording studio, a kitchen and more.
“We offer workforce training programs for youth and adults to prepare people to get a job or help the community,” she said.
When the single-entrance door is done, Ewing said it will give the organization more office space but, more importantly, it “will be more welcoming.” The north exterior brick wall will get some tuck-pointing. She hopes to have a mural painted there when the restoration is complete.
Joseph Hughes, the owner of the Merchants Block Building at the southeast corner of Genesee and Water, said he plans to use his $50,000 grant for a new staircase, by which second-floor residents can get to the street level more easily.
“We’ll replace the older one with an ornamental iron exterior staircase,” Hughes said of the building built in 1925. “This is a safety enhancement to help the people who live there.”
A five-story building, Hughes said seven businesses occupy the ground floor, with apartments on the second story. There are three subterranean levels which will eventually be developed.
Among the requirements for the grant program, the exterior of the building must meet all city code requirements, according to the program description. There must be at least a $2,000 investment, exclusive of labor costs.
Kischer-Lepper said final approval comes from the Development Review Board.
Attempts to reach representatives of Anastasia’s were unsuccessful.
