Planning the roughly $80,000 project to redo the downtown North Tonawanda building's three sizable facades included input from the local Historic Preservation Commission, Partners in Art and even a photograph taken in the 1930s to effectively replicate the original architecture on the block also home to the historic Riviera Theatre.

It also incorporated a roughly $30,000 matching grant through the New York State Division of Housing and Community Development, a competitive grant secured by the Lumber City Development Corporation.  The official name of the funding source used to help pay for renovation is the Main Street Grant Program.  The grant is specifically geared toward the restoration of street-side facades and can provide up to $10,000 per structure.  Partners in Art got most of that figure for it's three such facades, with a portion of the total grant also offset using other money on LCDC's end.  The rest of the total bill was covered using a low-interest loan through LCDC and the organization's own investment.

"We never would have been able to do this without the grant," Joan Horn, of Partners in Art, said.  Grant writer Chuck Bell said the organization approached them around the time they were exploring buying the properties, adjacent to their original headquarters at 83 Webster Street, which the group purchased in 1995.  "It was some pretty generic and ugly vinyl siding," Bell said of the old facade.  "They ripped that off to go back to the existing brickwork...The total package really did come out great." 

While most of the overhaul was completed last week, some cornice pieces on special order are expected to soon complete the project.  Horn said the old photograph highlighted some specific details that were incorporated into the plan.

"You could see these round tops where the signs are," she said. "they're like a half circle above the roof to replicate the old look of the building from the early 1900s," she said.

Partners in Art was once limited to their old location at 83 Webster St., which was sold to former tenants around the time they expanded.  The property they sold now houses a digital photography studio called Pencil in the River Studio and a ground-floor retail operation called Everything Annie Likes.

In the remaining larger series of spaces, Partners in Art provides demonstrations, studio and gallery space to the local art community.  Horn said the new property has allowed for increased studio space, larger teaching studios, technology and lighting upgrades among other things.  She is pleased with the many recent business dollars being pumped into the city's downtown district.  "As people have been disappearing off the street, those of us who are left started expanding."  she said.  "When we bought our building in 1995 it was a ghost town down here and it has continued to grow over the years." 

Also included in the larger property the organization now owns are tenants like Lou's Restaurant, an enduring downtown eatery.  On the other end of the block, just past the theatre, Dwyer's Irish Pub is nearing the completion of a new patio.

The LCDC's Executive Director, Jim Sullivan, said an additional application for future funds through the Main Street grant has been applied for and he'll know next month or in September whether or not yet another round of identical funding will be available.