After three long years of applying for grants, fundraising, and meeting with contractors and engineers, the day is finally here. The CURE building renovation has begun. During the first week of May, we got a new deck and stairs out the back of the building, and in week two, the work on the front of the building began.
In 2018, CURE applied for a Small Cities Commercial Rehabilitation grant through Montevideo’s Prairie Five CAC program. This grant provided $250,000 in funding to the City of Montevideo for rehabilitation loans for ten commercial buildings in a targeted section of the downtown area. The grant provided a 70/30 financed opportunity where the commercial partners had to raise a 30% match. The average Small Cities Grant provided the ten business owners $25,000 with a 10-year term forgiven at 10% per year.
CURE went to work fundraising with our “Nip & Tuck” capital campaign in 2019 through direct mail and as part of Give to the Max Day campaign that fall.
Any rehabilitation/remodeling project has its challenges. This project was no exception. We worked with area contractors and engineers to determine what could be done to refresh the CURE building storefront. Scott Johnson from Johnson Construction took on the challenge of working with us along with help from Asche Engineering, Albertson Masonry, Thomas Masonry, French Glass, and Molde’s Electric.
While we love the nature of a brick surface, back in the early 2000’s the front of our building was painted. Along with the erosion from exposure to the elements, that made it cost-prohibitive to maintain all of the brick on the front of the building.
Bryan Asche from Asche Engineering in Alexandria was consulted on possible treatments to the existing brick. Mason, Dustin Albertson was contracted to repair and stabilize the current brick so that Sam Thomas could apply a stucco-like finish to the exterior on the upper portion of the building. Albertson also cleaned and repaired the brickwork on the street level. Jason and Ray from French Glass installed new front window glass and doors on the street level. Scott Johnson provided all the construction support in each of the processes and did the metalwork on the soffit.
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