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Council considers boosting Heart of Ellsworth support and tapping downtown TIF funds
Summary
Heart of Ellsworth asked for more city support to stabilize Main Street operations; staff and council discussed using downtown TIF resources to raise annual funding from $25,000 toward a proposed $42,000 level.
Heart of Ellsworth presented data showing a multi‑year return on municipal investment and asked the council to consider raising its appropriation above the current $25,000. The group said it has directed more than $1.1 million back into downtown through grants and programs, helped drop downtown vacancy from near 50% to under 10% and produced nearly $400,000 in grant funding in the last year.
Board representatives and staff argued that predictable municipal support is critical to sustain a full‑time capacity and to leverage grant opportunities. City staff and council members discussed whether to apply anticipated downtown TIF revenue to boost the organization’s funding; the manager suggested that if a downtown TIF district is approved, about $42,000 could be made available by porting TIF funds to support downtown programming, and that unallocated TIF reserves might be used if the district is approved this cycle.
Councilors asked about the relative municipal investment compared with peer Main Street communities and agreed to revisit the request after TIF decisions and the remainder of the departmental budget work. No final funding decisions were made at the workshop.
