City loses out on grant funds
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on October 30, 2015 1:46 PM
Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced Thursday which communities will be part of the most recent round of Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants.
Goldsboro was not one of those communities.
But, Wilson and Charlotte both received grant money from the TIGER VII grant program.
The Goldsboro City Council voted in April to allow the Downtown Goldsboro Development Corp. to apply for the grant funds.
Goldsboro's application requested money to fund renovations to the historic Union Station on Carolina Street, to improve Cornerstone Commons, to pay for the installation of wayfinding signs throughout the city and for the completion of the downtown Streetscape project by way of renovating the 300 and 400 blocks of South Center Street.
Under the project proposal, Union Station rehabilitation was going to cost $8.7 million, the completion of Center Street revitalization would have cost $2.8 million, installation of wayfinding signs would have cost $330,000 and improvements to Cornerstone Commons would have cost $1 million.
The total cost of the projects would have been $12.9 million, and if any grant money would have been received, the city government would have needed to come up with a 20 percent match in funding.
At the time the City Council approved applying for the funds, DGDC Director Julie Metz said funding for projects would have broken down into Union Station being 80 percent funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, with the city paying 20 percent of the cost; wayfinding signs would have been 80 percent funded by TIGER funds, and 20 percent would have come from the city; Cornerstone Commons would have been 50 percent funded by TIGER funds, 10 percent would have been funded by the city and the other 40 percent would have come from the private sector; and the Center Street completion of blocks 300 and 400 would have been 80 percent funded by TIGER funds and 20 percent would have been funded by city money.
Ms. Metz did not return a phone call placed Thursday afternoon requesting comment on Goldsboro not being awarded this round of grant money by press time.
Foxx said the government received 627 eligible applications for the money, with project amounts totaling $10.1 billion -- but the federal government only had $500 million available to award.
Of the 39 total communities that were awarded grant money, 22 were in urban areas and 17 were in rural areas. Two of the rural communities were in tribal areas of the U.S.
"You'll notice that we awarded a higher percentage of rural grants this time around than we ever have before," Foxx said.
The reason, he said, was to begin working on areas across the country that are isolated from the rest of the nation due to poor modes of, and access to, transportation in those areas.
Foxx said what is happening is as federal transportation dollars decrease at the national level, more and more communities are applying for, and relying on, the TIGER grant program to fill in the gaps in funding for necessary infrastructure projects.
Project applications are now addressing "critical and urgent" transportation needs in the communities that apply, with areas seeking funding for bridge and road repair projects.
When grading applications, Foxx said the government looked at the extent of repairs projects would cover, how many local partnerships had been formed to accomplish the project, whether or not the proposed projects improved safety, whether or not the quality of life in the area would be improved and what the economic impact of the projects would be once completed.