Lockport council weighs expanding downtown facade grants after Ball State recommendations

Lockport council members debated changes to the city's facade grant program during a lengthy discussion focused on funding levels, program scope and a recent study of downtown buildings.

"I always thought that our current facade program inhibits making a building as historically accurate as we possibly can," said an unnamed councilmember, arguing the present caps sometimes make historically accurate restoration prohibitively expensive. The council referenced facade recommendations prepared by the Ball State Center for Historic Preservation that cover 15 downtown buildings and outline two levels of recommended improvement.

Staff cautioned the Ball State deliverable is primarily a recommendations package identifying necessary improvements and that it will not include construction pricing. "Our goal is to simply identify the improvements that would be necessary to bring it up to'—there are two different levels of improvement," a staff member said, explaining the study is intended to speed approvals by giving owners designs already vetted through the city's historic-review process.

Council members pressed a range of options: raising the per-project cap well above the current $20,000 per facade (the program allows $20,000 per visible facade, for a $40,000 cap on some buildings), dedicating annual gaming-revenue funds to the program, or selecting one significant building a year for larger awards. One councilmember suggested the city could fund a forensic analysis to determine realistic restoration scopes for the 15 buildings covered by the study.

Staff noted the program was amended in 2020 to let the council exceed the base percentage reimbursement in justified cases, and said they have previously recommended exceeding that limit when returning a facade to its historic appearance proved necessary. "If there are justifiable reasons they want to go an extra mile, I feel comfortable supporting from a staff level an additional amount above and beyond what our minimum is," a staff speaker said.

Concerns about budget discipline and predictability were raised. One member asked for an analysis of how much facade funding has been available and spent over the last decade before committing to higher annual allocations. "If we have a trend that needs to go up, certainly we can go up," a council member said, urging the group to treat the item as part of upcoming budget discussions rather than adopt an immediate blanket increase.

Other topics included expanding the geographic boundaries of the program (a 2020 change extended the program north and east), adding a contractor referral list through Main Street (staff cannot recommend specific contractors directly), and creating clearer application and nomination processes to encourage property owners to take the first step.

Next steps: staff and council members agreed to consider the Ball State recommendations as part of planning work this fall, to prepare financial analyses for budget discussions, and to bring specific amendment language or funding proposals to Committee of the Whole for further deliberation.