LaVelle’s receives CEDC storefront grant

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

LaVelle’s Coffee house is the newest business on Kearney Street and the recipient of the Clarendon Economic Development Corporation’s 15th cash award under its popular Façade Grant Program.

Owned and operated by Michelle Hall, LaVelle’s opened Tuesday at 214 S. Kearney in the building formerly occupied by Eads’ Furniture & Appliance. Hall received $706.33 from the CEDC for fifty percent of the cost of signage improvements to the front of the building, which repurposed an old lighted RCA sign for the coffee house.

“The façade grant was very important to us,” Hall said last Friday before the business opened. “We already had six tourists come in from as far away as Arizona.”

Hall also completed a substantial remodeling of the old furniture store with new wall treatments, new bathrooms, and a new kitchen.

LaVelle’s features flavored coffees, lattes, and cappuccinos as well as soups, salads, sandwiches and will also offer a healthy breakfast menu.

Hall said she wants the coffee shop to be a place where people come to relax. Free wireless Internet is available, and other amenities include a pool table, a kids’ corner, and seating areas for small groups.

Since the Façade Grant Program began in 2008, the CEDC has awarded $ 17,636.93 to property owners on a three-block stretch of Kearney Street.

LaVelle’s is the first grant the CEDC has awarded since it renewed and revised the Façade Grant Program last month. The basic concept of the program remains unchanged, providing 50-50 matching grants, up to a maximum of $2,000 per project, for improvements done to commercial storefronts.

Under the new guidelines, the program will now consider properties located in the city’s entire Central Business District, an area defined by city planning maps created in 2002. Generally, that includes properties facing Kearney Street from First to Fifth streets as well as properties facing Sully Street from First to Fifth and properties on the west side of Gorst Street from Second Street (US 287) to Fourth Street.

Projects eligible for consideration could be anything from a coat of paint to new signage to a complete rehabilitation of a storefront. Property owners interested in Façade Grant funds must get approval before beginning their projects.

For more information about the CEDC Façade Grant Program, contact Chandra Eggemeyer at the Clarendon Visitor Center inside the Mulkey Theatre at 874-2421.