GROVE CITY Group has plans for a downtown revitalization

Government grant sources are expected to cover about half the cost.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
GROVE CITY, Pa. -- The Grove City community will have to come up with about $3 million if it wants to follow through on a downtown revitalization plan proposed by a nonprofit planning group.
Grove City Revitalization Inc., a nonprofit local group seeking to help the town, presented its preliminary improvement plan for a three-block section of the downtown business district to more than 100 interested residents at a public meeting this week.
The total estimated cost of the package prepared by the consulting firm of E.G. & amp;G. Inc. of Akron, comes to $5.8 million, and that's just for the first of three phases.
State and federal community development grants will be targeted as a major source of that money, but those are matching funds, which means the community will have to come up with at least half the total expense, said Dr. David Dayton, chairman of the group.
The plan calls for improvements to the public areas of the town to make it more attractive to visitors and shoppers.
First phase
The three-block area in the first phase is bounded by Broad Street on the east, Center Street on the west, Main Street on the south and Blair Street on the north. The plan calls for new sidewalks and curbs, street resurfacing, new streetlights and landscaping and the placing of all utility lines underground.
No cost estimates have been prepared yet for the second and third phases, which would be smaller expansions of the first-phase area, Dayton said.
E.G. & amp;G. will help secure government grant funds, but it will be up to Grove City Council and the revitalization group to raise the local share, he said, noting that his organization is hoping to raise between $500,000 and $1 million through a combination of corporate and individual contributions.
Borough council appears to be backing the project but hasn't made any financial commitments at this point, Dayton said. Just how the borough will raise money for the improvements is undetermined, but a bond issue might be one possibility to consider, he said.
The goal is to have the first phase completed by May 2006, Dayton said.