CEDC awards sixth improvement grant

Osburn Appliance received the first cash award this year from the Clarendon Economic Development Corporation’s Façade Grant Program.

The CEDC Board at its February 2 meeting approved Shirley Osburn’s improvements to her storefront at 319 S. Kearney and the adjacent storefront at 321 S. Kearney.

The addresses share a common front and doing only one side would not have looked good, Osburn said.

“It would have been just awful not to do both sides, so I got permission from the owner and did her building also,” Osburn said.

Both storefronts were constructed about 60 or 70 years ago to house Frank White’s Clarendon Hatchery, which operated at that location for many years. Osburn said she can remember going in to see White’s chicks as a girl and not knowing until years later that he was not just selling chicks in Clarendon but actually shipping thousands of them out of Donley County.

After the Hatchery and feed business closed, Osburn and her husband, Rabbit, who passed away last year, opened their business in that location in 1988.

Work under this façade grant application included puttying and patching deteriorating cement, caulking, priming, and painting both fronts. The project received $506.24 from the CEDC, which is half of the amount of the improvements.

Osburn said she had wanted to get rid of the buildings’ old green front for a long time and said the CEDC’s Façade Grant Program really “kick started” the improvements.

“I got a couple of letters about the (grant) program, and then San (Thompson) did his building next door, and June (Hinojosa) did hers across the street, and they both just looked so nice,” she said.

Osburn said she likes the CEDC’s program and believes improvement projects spur others to make improvements.

“I came in the other day and they were sweeping the street, so I got out there and started sweeping the sidewalk.”

The CEDC has budgeted $10,000 for this fiscal year’s Façade Grant Program, which provides fifty-fifty matching grants up to a maximum of $2,000 per project for properties on a three-block stretch of Kearney Street.

Projects eligible for consideration could be anything from a coat of paint to new signage to a complete rehabilitation of a storefront. Those interested in the grants are asked to apply prior to beginning a project, and applications are available from CEDC Secretary Roger Estlack at The Clarendon Enterprise.

To date the CEDC has awarded more than $5,500 in façade grants.
The CEDC Board will next meet to consider grant applications on Monday, March 2, at 6:00 p.m. in City Hall.