City of Excelsior Springs Named Semifinalist for Premier Partner Award
The Downtown Excelsior Partnership, Inc. nominated the City of Excelsior Springs for the 2023 Missouri Main Street Connection Evening of Excellence Awards for the Premier Partner in the State of Missouri in 2022 and they have been named a semifinalist! Read the full nomination below
The Downtown Excelsior Partnership, Inc. would like to nominate the City of Excelsior Springs for the 2023 Premier Partner Award.
As in many communities, the last couple of years have been a little crazy with the availability of ARPA funds. Many communities began using those funds immediately for public safety and health. We were fortunate that the leaders of our community were more creative than just that. They welcomed everyone to the table with ideas on what would be beneficial uses to each of the sectors in the community.
The City of Excelsior Springs took full advantage of their available opportunities and additionally secured $850,000 in Clay County ARPA funding to help cover the cost of two important flood prevention efforts in Excelsior Springs. The two projects included creating a watershed masterplan for Downtown Excelsior Springs ($350,000) and stormwater management in relation to phase two of the Community Center aquatics facility, which including dredging of Powell Lake at Century Park ($500,000). Our downtown is greatly impacted by flash flooding. State Representative Doug Richey arranged a meeting with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to allocate stimulus funding to address flooding in Downtown Excelsior Springs. In order to be prepared to take action as soon as funding is available, the City has worked to update prior studies to determine the most effective strategies. The proposed improvements will lead to a reduction of 5.4 total inches in a 10 year storm and 9.5 inches in a 25 year storm.
Additionally, the city entered into an Economic Development Agreement with the Downtown Excelsior Partnership, Inc. with their ARPA funds to utilize Placer.ai, a location analytics company that collects geolocation data from mobile devices enabled to share data in anonymized fashion. This agreement has allowed us to better determine where visitors are coming to the community from, the behaviors while in the downtown district, and has been beneficial in hotel feasibility studies, as well as the prioritization of road improvements.
DEP also received $50,000 of ARPA funds from the City of Excelsior Springs to administer a façade grant program for the businesses and property owners located within the Historic District in Downtown Excelsior Springs. The program is designed to improve the physical appearance and structural integrity of historic buildings, restore historic character of buildings, make Downtown Excelsior Springs more attractive to residents and tourists and encourage additional business investment opportunities and improvements. DEP received 18 ARPA Façade Grant applications and awarded all applications totaling $57,828.77 in grant funding to 14 different locations that included 5 awning grants, 3 signage grants and 10 façade improvement grants that will result in a private building investment of nearly $150,000.00.
Through another partnership with the City of Excelsior Springs, our organization was able to complete a Real Estate Redevelopment Strategy with Joe Borgstrom through the MMSC Downtown Strong Grant Program. We requested a tailored product for this grant and our city stepped up to provide us with a grant to be able to afford the match necessary to get the services desired. Through this opportunity we were able to receive a strategy that provided market data, retail gaps, opportunities, market segmentation, as well as district strategies for redevelopment. In addition to this information, we were also able to receive property specific market data and reports that are helping us rehabilitate some of our white elephant buildings in Downtown Excelsior Springs.
With the help of Parks & Recreation, we were able to add custom bike racks to the streetscape of Downtown Excelsior Springs, further promoting biking to our growing biking community.
Through City of Excelsior Springs grant opportunities, we were able to add Christmas displays to the Lane of Lights totaling over $18,000 and were able to promote Small Business Saturday through EDDM while providing shoppers with souvenir shopping totes with another $3,217.
The City of Excelsior Springs supports the Downtown Excelsior Partnership, Inc. as an organization, and truly believes in our mission of downtown revitalization. Without the projects that took place in the last year, organizationally we would not be as strong as we are today. We look forward to our continued partnerships that include an ARPA funding Wayfinding Agreement, a streetscape redevelopment plan that will lead to a CDBG application to assist in securing funding to construct the new streetscape. We look forward to continuing the partnerships that have already begun to construct the new Lithia Landing deck in downtown, as well as using ARPA funds to extend electricity in the Lane of Lights and add permanent electricity in downtown for festivals. It is because of these reasons, and so many more, that the City of Excelsior Springs is deserving of the Premier Partner of the Year Award.
