By Joseph Goral
Staff Writer
jgoral@mihomepaper.com
OXFORD — The Oxford DDA Board of Directors unanimously approved a grant for facade work at 65 S. Washington St., and to receive ARPA funding from Oakland County during their meeting on Aug. 19.
Board members Bryce Clark, Leigh Ann Knauss, Holly Pifer and Scott Taylor were absent.
South Washington Street facades
The board approved $6,000 in grants for work to be done on the front and back facades at 65 S. Washington St.
The property’s tenants are Country Kitchen and Bath, Brogan’s Landscape Construction and Swiss Insurance Group, which includes one office space for JDR Wealth Management.
The six steps for construction include demolishing “Dilapidated products,” the northeast corner of the building will be disassembled and old windows will be replaced once foundation repairs are complete, new decking and lighting, restoring the wood trim while keeping the decorative wood in place, according to DDA documents.
Five thousand dollars was granted for the front facade and $1,000 was granted for the back, according to DDA documents.
ARPA funding for new crosswalks
The DDA voted to approve accepting ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funding for new crosswalks – the first part of a multi-step ARPA funding project. The Oxford Village Council will give final approval on accepting the funding.
The crosswalk project was already approved by the village council, “but what happened is we went to approve the contract through the DDA, and we realized that the contract is written up through the village’s SAM (System for Award Management) number,” DDA Executive Director Kelly Westbrook said.
After the village manager reads through the contract, Westbrook said it was decided that asking village council to use their SAM number for the project was necessary.
“I don’t think that there’s going to be any issue because we’ve already been awarded the ARPA funding,” Westbrook said. “But we haven’t signed the contract for the ARPA funding yet because we’re waiting for village council … next month to approve the use of their number.”
The ARPA funding goes back to 2021 when President Joe Biden signed the $1.9 trillion act to aid recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to Westbrook, Oxford was able to receive ARPA funding due to being one of 28 Main Street Oakland County communities.
From there, each community could put forward a place-making project for which they could use the funds, which is the Burdick Street crosswalks in Oxford’s case.
In this, Westbrook said the DDA needs to put up 60% of the match for the funding.
“We’re able to receive $134,000 of the ARPA funding, and then I think our price that we would pay is about $204,000 all together,” Westbrook said.
The reason for the crosswalks is that pedestrians already cross east and west Burdick Street near the planned locations instead of crossing at the street’s M-24 intersection.
For more about the planned crosswalks visit oxfordleader.com to read the Aug. 21 article.