You may be scratching your head to remember who the Idaho Falls Downtown Development is (or IFDDC as we lovingly call it). The IFDDC is a 20-year-old nonprofit organization that was formed to advance our historical downtown as the regional center for commerce, culture and leisure activities for residents and visitors. Within that mission, we are fortunate enough to manage the Business Improvement District in downtown Idaho Falls.
At any time, IFDDC has multiple projects in motion and this year has been no different even while dealing with the effects of COVID-19. Here are just a few of the projects our organization currently has underway.
Facades and Signs
Our work has been ongoing with the Community Development Block Grant program, and we can take advantage of this with funding from HUD to provide Facade and Sign Grants to our downtown businesses and property owners. The Pie Hole Pizza Café on Park Avenue is one of our latest projects – keep your peepers out for more improvements to that building as the new Spruce Home and Gift store opens here soon.
We work with the property owner, City of Idaho Falls Grant Administrator, Lisa Farris, and the property owner’s building contractor and architect to execute the historic renovations of the façades and production of new signs that all fall in line with the downtown design guidelines. It takes a team of people to pull the projects together and we are fortunate to partner with the Historic Preservation’s Commissions for recommendations and guidance through the process.
As of July 3, 2018, we have completed over 100 projects at $834,000 in HUD funding provided to our downtown business and property owners through this program. The official numbers for 2020 will exceed $900,000. Business owners are invested with a cash match to the grant of 25 percent. We currently have another $50,000 available in funding for this program and are working on the application now for additional funding for the next fiscal year.
Downtown Lighting
The next project from IFDDC is a massive improvement to the lighting in our parking lots downtown. We will get to parking later, but we are currently meeting with contractors to bid out $20,000 of work to improve the light and safety of our parking lots throughout downtown Idaho Falls. This is truly an economic development.
In addition to supporting the businesses with signs, awnings and façades, we also look for big projects to leverage support and funding for. We just wrapped up our projects downtown re-scaping the sidewalks including the Broadway corridor.
Blooming Downtown
We planted 53 new trees this year with the help of our contractor David Lawrence Landscaping. These trees were all specifically selected based on the locations downtown and the environment they would need to thrive in. It is not easy to grow plants or trees in the urban setting downtown. Concrete, blacktop and temperatures of over 100 degrees on the pavement during the summer months make for some challenging conditions for green living things to thrive and bloom.
We installed 95 hanging baskets planted by 4 Seasons Landscaping and we planted over 1,000 flowers throughout downtown. We hired Reinhart Concrete to pour 4,366 feet of new curbing and 20,788 square feet of new sidewalk. Overall, these projects totaled over one million dollars.
We promote and work hard to advance the story of downtown Idaho Falls economically every day through our social media channels, newsletter communications, and overall presence downtown. We do this to care for the living and beating heart of our special city.
Click here to read more of our December issue.