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Date: 6/27/2022
BELCHERTOWN – To support businesses seeking assistance throughout the state, the Massachusetts Office of Business Development offered a Regional Economic Development Organization (REDO) grant program and Belchertown was one of the recipients, receiving $50,000 in grant funding for local businesses.
Town Planner Doug Albertson said the application process for the REDO grant was set up by the state through regional economic development organizations to distribute funding to municipalities.
“So, we applied through the Western Mass. Economic Development Council and received $50,000 for our effort to provide something to local businesses to spiff up their properties,” he said.
To distribute the funds, the town opened a grant application period that closed on June 17 and six businesses were awarded funding. Through the grant, businesses in the town center – wrapping from Rt. 9, around the common and down Rt. 21 – can renovate siding, windows, facades and signage on their property.
“We’ve been constantly figure out how do we assist businesses here, there’s some old obsolete buildings, some small lots and people always complain about parking. We were trying to figure out how do we assist these little, primarily locally owned businesses to get money circulating in our community more,” he said.
By giving businesses the opportunity to tidy up their properties, Albertson he said he hopes it drives economic development in town and gets people to spend more money locally.
“A lot of our economic development planning for the past two or three years has been toward that. We did a full economic development master plan a few years ago and the findings there are that we have a lot of small businesses, we have a lot of agriculturally oriented businesses and a lot of people come to town for recreation, whether it’s [the] Quabbin, hiking or other attractions,” he said.
Along with trying to get tourists to spend money in town, Albertson the plan is to hopefully incentivize more residents to spend their money locally too.
“The other side of that is getting local people to spend money their money here instead of going to Amherst, Ware, Palmer and spending it there or online,” he said. “We try to keep money in town, and we’ve got to support our local businesses and promote them.”
Speaking of economic development in town, Albertson the town currently has a request for proposal out to develop more of an economic development department in town.
“We now are looking to hire a consultant for 16 months to get our economic development program established with the idea that it would eventually become a salaried position and an office in town, that’s kind of the thrust of our economic development efforts right now,” he said.
Applying for these smaller grants for local businesses is all part of the town’s economic development plan.
“These mini grants are a fundamental process that I think is going to get the idea out there and give people more visual pleasure and aesthetic niceness. They might feel inclined and be inspired to spend a little more money in town, sometimes image matters,” Albertson said.
Albertson said he is looking forward to getting the money into the applicants’ hands.
“We got six initial applications and we feel pretty good about that. Six people decided to take advantage of this and so they have some ideas and I think we can get stuff started or at least move it along. Some are going to need the money more than others, but it’s going to a good cause,” he said.
Albertson said the names of the businesses will be released once the funding amounts for each has been finalized. Once the funding amounts are finalized, Albertson said the plan is to get the money to the businesses as quickly as possible.
“It’s a simple program and we’re thrilled people jumped at it, maybe it can be the start of something better,” he said.