JUSTIN COOK The Roanoke Times

Blacksburg's Downtown Revitalization Committee is proposing that town council approve a $50,000 matching grant program that could help pay for facade improvements to qualifying downtown commercial buildings. The old National Bank building and adjacent storefronts have been vacant for years.

BLACKSBURG -- Come January, ongoing efforts to revitalize downtown may move from public sidewalks to private storefronts.

Two grant and loan programs under development by Blacksburg's Downtown Revitalization Committee and the Blacksburg Partnership Foundation could help fund improvements to deteriorating commercial buildings in the town's core.

A list of other town-sponsored incentives meant to spur private investment in the downtown is also under discussion and could go to the town council for approval next year.

Next month, the council will review and vote on a $50,000 matching grant program that could help fund facade improvements to qualifying downtown commercial buildings. An additional $10,000 in funding would be available for project design.

Funding for the grants would come from the town's annual federal entitlement allotment -- a pool of money also used to pay for affordable housing projects.

The nonprofit Blacksburg Partnership Foundation board has already approved a $25,000 low-interest revolving loan fund that would offer up to $5,000 to building owners or tenants who want to do either interior or exterior remodeling. Money for the loan fund came from the sale of Hokie bird statues sold through the partnership's Gobble de Art program.

Final details of the loan program are still being worked out. But organizers hope to begin accepting applications in January, partnership director Diane Akers said.

Akers said the town's grant program and the partnership's loan fund would ideally work in tandem.

"It's another type of incentive we're offering," she said. "We're hoping people can take advantage of both of them."

The development of public-private funding programs and incentives follows years of discussion of what to do about a downtown pockmarked with vacancies and blighted buildings.

Since 2000, the town has commissioned studies about downtown revitalization, replaced public sidewalks, planted trees, installed park benches and even raised meals taxes to fund a cleaning crew dedicated to maintenance of public streets and sidewalks.

The Downtown Revitalization Committee was organized in June and is chaired by Councilwoman Susan Anderson and made up of about two dozen residents, business owners and town and Virginia Tech officials.

About 40 people, including several commercial property owners, attended a meeting earlier this month when details of the two funds were presented. Response was overwhelmingly positive, Deputy Town Manager Steve Ross said.

Anderson said the funds themselves will have modest effects at first and should be seen as pilot programs.

Vice Mayor and revitalization committee member Leslie Hager-Smith echoed that sentiment.

"I think that they are just a piece in a much larger puzzle ... but I'm feeling very encouraged. A lot of things are coming together right now," Hager-Smith said.

Some of those other things include a package of incentives under development by members of the revitalization committee and town staff and a plan to recruit targeted businesses, especially retail, for downtown.

The proposed incentives package would ideally spur additional investment in downtown.

Some ideas being debated are the waiver of some town fees related to opening businesses or building remodeling and the fast-tracking of review of downtown projects, Ross said.

The incentives are being developed based on a series of consultant-led studies completed over the past few years, including the 2001 Downtown Master Plan and a downtown marketing study completed last year. A major recommendation of those studies was direct recruitment of targeted businesses.

Hager-Smith, who is the former director of the Downtown Merchants of Blacksburg, is helping develop the recruitment plan.

"We've got real momentum going," Hager-Smith said. "By 2009, you'll see lots of stuff in place."