Madison City PACE review committee recommends forwarding multiple historic-repair grant applications to Board of Public Works

Madison City's PACE review committee on March 11 reviewed more than a dozen grant applications for historic-rehabilitation work and voted to recommend that applications meeting the committee's qualifying scores be forwarded to the Board of Public Works for approval.

The committee chair, Jim Bartlett, said the review committee does not itself approve grants. "The PACE review committee does not actually approve the grants. We hear your proposals and review the proposal. We use a score sheet to score each proposal," Bartlett said, explaining that the committee averages four score sheets and forwards recommendations to the Board of Public Works.

Why it matters: The committee's recommendations are the step that begins city approval; the Board of Public Works takes the final action. Several applications seek work on visible downtown buildings and carriage houses; many involve masonry and original-window restoration, work that applicants and committee members said is costly but aimed at preserving historic character.

Key points

- The committee reviewed and heard from applicants or their representatives for multiple properties across downtown Madison, including 1 West Sixth Street (West Sixth Law), 515 Jefferson Street (carriage house windows), 418 East Second Street (fa'cade and brick repair), 403 West Second (window restoration with leaded glass), 311 East Street (front…