City-funded grants support downtown Topeka businesses’ growth

Significant advances in downtown Topeka’s redevelopment have boosted interest in investing downtown, according to a downtown official, and have increased the number of projects submitted to a city-funded incentive grant program.

For nearly each of the 18 years since the grant program’s inception, the city has budgeted funds for Downtown Topeka Inc. to administer through the Downtown Topeka Redevelopment Incentive Grant Program. The program encourages residential and commercial improvements to buildings in the Capital City Business Improvement District bounded by S.W. Topeka Boulevard, S.E. Adams, S.W. 13th and the Kansas River.

Vince Frye, executive director of DTI, said at least 100 projects have received funding since 2001, with amounts ranging from a few hundred dollars to the maximum of $50,000. As of May 1, he said, several applications were awaiting action by the six-member grant committee.

“This past year so far, we’ve had about $355,000 in grants that we’ve approved on projects totaling close to $33 million for downtown,” Frye said. “So it’s been very significant in that the return on investment is very impressive and certainly something that is measurable when the city goes about determining if these dollars have had an effect.”