Like many communities in rural Iowa, downtown Mount Pleasant has a wealth of older multi-story buildings and is the economic hub for retail businesses, professional offices, specialty and personal service shops, restaurants, and other businesses. Downtown Mount Pleasant is fortunate to have a core group of beautiful historic buildings, which have been a catalyst for a successful and vibrant downtown. However, this has not always been the case. In 2002 Mount Pleasant became a Main Street community with a mission to promote downtown as an exciting place to live, shop and invest, but to accomplish this we were going to need a game changer or in other words a vision.
The Main Street Mount Pleasant board and the City of Mount Pleasant partnered …show more content…
The vacant upper story space was vastly underutilized and forced the property owners to generate a majority of their property income from businesses that occupied the first floor. Development of vacant upper story space was going to require an investment by the property owners and Main Street Mount Pleasant and the City of Mount Pleasant knew that they were going to have to find an incentive program to help offset the cost. This is where Southeast Iowa Regional Planning came into play. In 2002 with the help of the city and Southeast Iowa Regional Planning we received our first upper story housing grant using the Local Housing Assistance Program. Over the past 13 years we have been able to secure $4,250,000 in grants from six different rounds of funding to create 54 new upper story housing units. With $121,000 in incentives from the City of Mount Pleasant we have seen over $8,500,000 spent on creating upper story …show more content…
According to a study done by Donovan Rypkema for Main Street Iowa a unit that rents for $500 can have a $19,469 annual impact on the downtown economy. The City of Mount Pleasant and Main Street Mount Pleasant saw the success of this program and the impact it had on the downtown and wanted to keep the momentum going so they created the Exterior Improvement Facade Grant in 2004.
Over the past 11 years Main Street has partnered with the City of Mount Pleasant and 31 businesses or building owners using the Exterior Improvement Grant. This grant is a dollar for dollar match, but we have seen a 2-3 dollar return on investment. Business owners have realized that investments in their buildings entice customers into their stores. This has been evident in the increase of sales tax dollars.
In 2002 the city of Mount Pleasant received $613,384 in sales tax and at the end of 2015 it has increased to $766,576, which is a 25% increase. All of these factors inspired the city council to budget the funds necessary to revitalize the Mount Pleasant Central
The Main Street Mount Pleasant board and the City of Mount Pleasant partnered …show more content…
The vacant upper story space was vastly underutilized and forced the property owners to generate a majority of their property income from businesses that occupied the first floor. Development of vacant upper story space was going to require an investment by the property owners and Main Street Mount Pleasant and the City of Mount Pleasant knew that they were going to have to find an incentive program to help offset the cost. This is where Southeast Iowa Regional Planning came into play. In 2002 with the help of the city and Southeast Iowa Regional Planning we received our first upper story housing grant using the Local Housing Assistance Program. Over the past 13 years we have been able to secure $4,250,000 in grants from six different rounds of funding to create 54 new upper story housing units. With $121,000 in incentives from the City of Mount Pleasant we have seen over $8,500,000 spent on creating upper story …show more content…
According to a study done by Donovan Rypkema for Main Street Iowa a unit that rents for $500 can have a $19,469 annual impact on the downtown economy. The City of Mount Pleasant and Main Street Mount Pleasant saw the success of this program and the impact it had on the downtown and wanted to keep the momentum going so they created the Exterior Improvement Facade Grant in 2004.
Over the past 11 years Main Street has partnered with the City of Mount Pleasant and 31 businesses or building owners using the Exterior Improvement Grant. This grant is a dollar for dollar match, but we have seen a 2-3 dollar return on investment. Business owners have realized that investments in their buildings entice customers into their stores. This has been evident in the increase of sales tax dollars.
In 2002 the city of Mount Pleasant received $613,384 in sales tax and at the end of 2015 it has increased to $766,576, which is a 25% increase. All of these factors inspired the city council to budget the funds necessary to revitalize the Mount Pleasant Central