St. Paul effort gets virus recovery funds

St. Paul’s downtown improvement efforts have received yet another source of funds.

Gov. Ralph Northam announced Aug. 11 that the St. Paul Tomorrow Inc. “St. Paul’s Got You Covered” initiative is getting a $25,000 Virginia Main Street downtown investment grant.

It was part of an announcement that 18 Virginia communities would receive a total of $278,000 to accelerate downtown economic revitalization “as part of Virginia’s COVID-19 economic recovery strategy,” according to a release. “Recovery projects include micro-marketing grants, advertising campaigns, promotional videos, support services, education, training and low-interest loans for small businesses.”

In late July, St. Paul’s downtown comprehensive infrastructure improvement project was named the best downtown public improvement project for 2020 by the Virginia Main Street program.

The Main Street program assists and trains community leaders to increase the economic vitality of their downtown commercial districts.

St. Paul is one of 26 designated communities taking part in the Main Street program.

In 2019, St. Paul won the program’s award for best adaptive reuse, for the transformation of a downtown building into the Western Front Hotel. Also, the town and the St. Paul Main Street program jointly won the private investment award for raising $5 million for downtown revitalization.

Also last year, the town won a nearly $18,700 Main Street program grant for the “Light up the Lyric” project.

In 2016, the town won the Main Street program’s merit award for volunteer efforts.