Taylor Rentals & Creative Events will get a face lift after being awarded $25,000 by the Bonita Springs City Council as part of a Storefront Grant program that will help business owners.
Council members in Bonita Springs are continuing their efforts to breed new life into the Old 41 corridor in Bonita Springs.
The city has awarded two storefront grants in the amount of $50,000 to George Ghanem, the owner of Bonita Mini Storage and Taylor Rentals & Creative Events.
The grant money will help Ghanem remodel the front of the two businesses and help the city with its plans to revitalize the area.
"Beautifying and changing the architecture of that building to be more of the vision (council has) is a great way to make it a better place," said Ghanem, who has owned the businesses for the last six years. "We just want to make it a little nicer."
Working to make the area nicer took 18 months, Ghanem said, because of the lengthy application process that had to be submitted to the city for approval.
"We do a pre-application and we talk about what they'd like to do and it's a quick way for us to be able to
get an idea of what their plans are," said John Gucciardo, the special projects coordinator for the city. "We are able to get an idea of what they want before they go out and spend a lot of money."
Gucciardo is in charge of evaluating the applications that include turning in pictures of the current structure and architectural drawings of what will be done with the grant money.
The property owners and the city do a 50-50 split up to $25,000. Because Ghanem owned two properties, the city had to approve a grant for each structure.
"We brought it up to the council that it was all part of one renovation project but it was two separate parcels," Gucciardo said about the grant that was created for one business at a time.
The two projects are estimated to cost Ghanem $200,000 and work should be completed by the summer of 2008.
Grant recipients have one year to complete the project and are reimbursed at completion time.
"It's still an outright grant but it's not a loan, but it is secured with a note and that is attracting more property owners," said Gucciardo, adding that owners who receive the money will get a 20 percent break on their obligation to the city if they keep the property for five years.
Ghanem is hoping the new storefronts and work being done in the Old 41 corridor will attract more people and more business.
"I think that its been a little run down for a while overall, but its not really been indicative of the true city and spirit of the area," said Ghanem who is also looking into possibly expanding the square footage of the structures as well.
"Bonita is a wonderful place to live and work and we feel we have an obligation to keep it a pleasant (looking) place."
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