To help revive Utah’s historic Main Streets, The Utah State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) has received nearly $750,000 awarded by the National Park Service’s Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant.
Utah Main Street Program Manager Chelsea Gauthier said the grant is designed to preserve historic buildings and promote economic growth in rural communities.
“So when we are doing historic preservation," Gauthier said. “We're really amplifying the story of the community and creating more activated streetscapes really, you know, and celebrating local businesses so your shop local movement and the local organizations that are there.”
SHPO uses a four-pillar approach which focuses on design, economic vitality, promotion, and organization. They hope these pillars will help activate local businesses and stimulate local economies.
“It's not just a project, it's not just a grant,” Gauthier said. “They're really balancing these four different pillars to have a robust impact in their community.”
Another aim of this grant is to help convert upper levels of historic business buildings into housing options, a part of the buildings that technical preservation manager Amber Anderson said tend to be vacant and empty.
“They're being used as storage, maybe sometimes office space,” Anderson said. “But a lot of the times, they're just sitting vacant. So at least from the historic preservation standpoint, the best way to save a building is to use it right so we want to make sure that the spaces are being utilized the best that they can.”
Anderson said a historic Mexican Market called Zacatecas in Tooele has been seeing a lot of improvement and is nearing its final stages.
“In the recent past, it was not recognizable, as a historic building that it is, Anderson said. “They have recently been working on returning the facade to his historic appearance using the Paul Bruhn grant.”
While SHPO doesn’t provide full funding, prospective property owners of historic buildings can apply for some of the funding as a “seedbed” to help jumpstart their projects.
