Having completed the first step toward the approval of a city funding request, the El Dorado Historic District Commission is expected to continue efforts to apply for a grant to help develop a citywide historic preservation plan.
The commission will meet at noon today in the second-floor conference room of City Hall, two days after the El Dorado Works Board approved a funding request to help boost a grant application to help cover the costs of the preservation plan.
The grant will also be used for other, annual EHDC expenditures for staff and training.
Elizabeth Eggleston, executive director of the EHDC, and former EHDC member Doug Stanton presented the funding request to the EWB during the board’s monthly meeting Tuesday.
The EWB administers the city’s one-cent sales tax for economic development.
Other historic district commissioners, including chairman Linda Rathbun and Diane Murfee, also attended the meeting in support of the proposal.
Eggleston told EWB members that two firms — one based in Chicago and the other Westlake Reed Loskosky, the architectural team that designed the Murphy Arts District — had responded to requests for proposals and both quotes exceeded $40,000.
Eggleston said she is applying for a Certified Local Government grant, a federal grant that is funneled through the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program.
El Dorado is one of 20 CLG cities in the state. CLGs represent partnerships between local governments, the AHPP and the National Park Service to preserve local historic resources.
Eggleston has explained that the AHPP is prioritizing grant proposals for community preservation plans for the 2019 - 2020 grant cycle.
On Tuesday, she told EWB members that she has submitted a letter of intent notifying the AHPP that El Dorado will apply for a CLG grant to use, in part, for the development of a citywide historic preservation plan.
The grant application is due Feb. 22 and Eggleston said the city, who is the actual applicant of the grant, will request $40,000.
EHDC commissioners have also said that while there is no requirement for matching funds for the grant, the AHPP will give preference to grant applications that come with financial support from local communities.
Eggleston also said several letters of support will be submitted along with the grant application, noting that Mayor Veronica Smith-Creer, El Dorado Planning and Zoning Commission, the South Arkansas Historical Preservation Society, Main Street El Dorado, the El Dorado-Union County Chamber of Commerce, Murphy Arts District and others have all written letters.
The preservation plan will be based on the U.S. Secretary of the Interior’s standards and guidelines for historic preservation planning — which organizes preservation activities, such as identifying areas and buildings for possible placement on the National Register of Historic Places, Eggleston said.
Stanton said the final plan will include maps, photos and renderings illustrating an analysis of future preservation plans for El Dorado.
Recommendations for changes in the city’s zoning code to improve streets, sidewalks and infrastructure will also be a part of the plan, Stanton said.
He noted that the preservation plan will also build on plans by the Arkansas Department of Transportation to improve the Hillsboro/U.S. 82 gateway.
A series of public meetings will be held to gather public input for the preservation plan, Stanton told EWB members.
Eggleston requested $10,000 from the EWB.
“In the unlikely event that we’re turned down by the state, what happens to the $10,000?” former EWB chairman Robert Reynolds asked.
Rathbun said that since the cash would be designated for the preservation plan, the EHDC would return the money.
New EWB chairman Greg Downum motioned to OK the funding request, with the amount contingent upon the approval of the grant from the AHPP and the amount of the grant that would be available to cover the preservation plan.
The funding request must be presented to the El Dorado City Council for final approval.
Also on the EHDC’s agenda today is a post-Certificate of Appropriateness request for a new exterior door at Kai Saira, 115 E. Main.
COAs are required for most exterior work that will alter the historic and architectural character of the city’s Commercial Historic District.
Property owners must seek a COA prior to the work being completed. The EHDC discourages “after-the-fact” COAs.
Tia Lyons may be contacted at 870-862-6611 or by email at [email protected].