Windsor Locks Officials Seek State Grant for Main Street Improvements

The Windsor Locks Board of Selectmen Tuesday endorsed a plan to revitalize the town’s Main Street area and approved a town meeting’s permission to seek a state grant.

Selectmen voted to send a proposal to a town meeting on September 25 asking voters’s permission to apply for a state grant for improvements to the Main Street area.

Town Planner Jennifer Rodriguez said state legislature created a grant program for communities with populations of 30,000 or less to apply for up to $500,000 in assistance for projects to improve Main Street areas.

Rodriguez said it was recommended that Windsor Locks apply for $250,000 and that money would be used to improve the School and Main streets intersection, as part of the town’s Main Street are plan. The deadline to apply for the grant is September 28.

The board, which had spoke in favor of the 2009 Main Street master plan, but never approved it, had to do so as part of the town’s application for the state grant, Rodriguez said.

The improvements would serve as a gateway to the town’s Main Street area, Rodriguez said. The designs call for improvements similar to those in front of  the Walgreens Store at Main and Elm streets, she said.

“We’d like to have similar lighting fixtures as in front of Walgreens,” Rodriguez said.

According to the state act, the grant can be used for improvements to property owned by the municipality.  A portion of the proceeds of the grant may be used to provide a one-time reimbursement to owners of commercial private property for eligible expenditures that directly support and enhance an eligible project.