When Kortnie and Nick Mullins bought the building at 105 Main St. in downtown Bangor last year, they knew they were in for a big undertaking.
The 1871 building, known as the Adams-Pickering Block and designed by famed local architect George Orff, hadn’t undergone any major renovations in nearly 40 years. The 22 apartments inside were in great condition and commercial tenant Bangor Window Shade and Drapery are a longstanding local business, but the facade of the building was in dire need of repairs, with drafty windows, rotting wood and peeling paint.
It would have cost the Mullinses close to $200,000 out of pocket to replace all 55 windows and restore the historic granite facade — the only remaining granite facade in downtown Bangor, original to the building. But thanks to the city of Bangor’s facade grant program, they were able to have nearly half of the cost of restoration covered, receiving $75,000 in total.
“It puts something that would be out of reach for a lot of property owners — especially local folks — back in as a viable option,” said Kortnie Mullins. “And it just makes the downtown look better. Things like this make people feel better about their downtowns.”
Since the 1980s, facade restoration grant programs have helped towns and cities across the state transform their downtowns from rundown areas to centerpieces of the community. In Bangor alone, more than 50 buildings have used the grants to improve the exterior of their buildings, creating a more aesthetically — and commercially — pleasing downtown. Commercial occupancy rates downtown now hover at around 95 percent, a number much higher than in previous decades.
Now, tenants at 105 Main St. have energy efficient windows that retain the historic character of the building. The granite was cleaned and now sparkles in the sunlight, and the original Adams-Pickering sign is now clearly visible. The street level facade is now an attractive slate black instead of a shade of pink that Nick Mullins compared to the color of a Band-Aid, after fading in the sun for 40 years.
“That was a color that was hot in the ’80s, but it wasn’t historically appropriate to the building, and it fell out of style pretty quickly,” Mullins said. “We would not have been able to do what we did and really bring this historic building to the way it should look without this grant. It is a huge asset to the community.”
Anne Krieg, economic and community development director for the city of Bangor, said that Bangor, like cities all across the country, struggled to revitalize its downtown as big box stores put mom-and-pop shops out of business in the 1980s and ’90s. Facade grant programs are one of the ways cities can invest in economic growth.
“There aren’t a lot of opportunities for public entities to invest in private entities,” she said. “Facade grants are a way of saying, ‘We are glad you are here in our downtown, and we want to invest in your future.’ These are important buildings. These streetscapes are how people relate to their communities. If it looks good, people feel good. And if they feel good about it, more will come.”
Longtime Bangor residents are likely familiar with the urban renewal movement, which between 1964 and 1974 saw a federally funded program demolish countless old buildings in the name of a cleaner, more fire-safe downtown. Once those buildings came down, however, very little was built in their place, resulting in a downtown that felt emptied-out — a problem further exacerbated by the exodus of businesses to the newly built Bangor Mall in 1978.
Starting in 1974 — just as the urban renewal project in Bangor was finishing — the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development shifted away from urban renewal in favor of Community Development Block Grants, a yearly pool of federal money that offers qualifying cities more flexibility in how they implement federal funds. Bangor has received such a grant for decades.
Rather than tearing everything down, the idea instead was to rehabilitate and preserve — and Bangor, having lost many unique old buildings during urban renewal, was eager to stem that tide. In the 1980s, the city began enacting historic preservation ordinances, and in the 1990s, it began offering grants to property owners as an incentive to restore the facades of buildings, pulled from those block grant funds, with the yearly facade grant program officially started in 2005.
The Adams-Pickering Block work is just the most recent example of facade grant projects in downtown Bangor. Since the program started, more than 50 buildings downtown have received grants, including those that house The Rock & Art Shop, Mexicali Blues, Portland Pie Company, 11 Central, Benjamin’s, Harvest Moon Deli, and perhaps most notably, the 2008 restoration of the facade of the Bangor Opera House.
Today, most facade grant programs are funded through Community Development Block Grants, though other state and federal funds can also be used, as well as money garnered from tax increment financing districts that levy additional property taxes on certain parts of municipalities.
Belfast and Bath both benefited from facade grants programs in the 1990s, using federal money to enhance their downtowns — programs that continue today, in the case of Bath. Rockland began offering facade grants in 2006, which helped to transform the city’s downtown from a struggling coastal outpost to a thriving arts community and tourist destination. Ellsworth has offered facade grants at various points over the past two decades, and it now boasts a nearly 100 percent occupancy rate in its downtown.
Up north, Millinocket offered facade grant programs in the 1990s, as did Caribou in the early 2000s. Houlton began such a program for a few years in the late 2000s, and revived it three years ago in order to more directly help businesses in its historic downtown. So far, two businesses have used their grants to restore their facades, and another developer is rehabbing a building for mixed commercial and residential use.
Nancy Ketch, economic development director for Houlton, said she thinks it’s hard to quantify exactly the impact that facade improvement programs have on a downtown — only that before such things happened, things were definitely less vibrant in their communities.
The grant program is still in its early days, but Ketch says they are already seeing results.
“When you see people caring about their community, it changes the way you see your community,” Ketch said. “Can you point to programs like this and say ‘That’s what changed things?’ Not specifically, but right now we have very few vacancies in downtown Houlton, and there’s a very positive attitude among people downtown. It’s all part of an ongoing process.”
The next round of applications for downtown Bangor’s facade grant program opens next month. Municipalities with facade grant programs list information on their websites.