Plans moving for donated new EDC loan fund;

The Economic Development Corporation (EDC) has accepted official guidelines for the new loan fund created when an area businesswoman decided to donate $100,000 for the purpose of funding new business startups. The new measures will now go before the county board of commissioners in September. The acceptance will involve minor changes to the articles of incorporation for the EDC and a clarifying amendment to the articles that specifies operating a loan program.

The EDC board members voted to accept the anonymous $100,000 donation to be used for a loan fund using the new guidelines. The first part of the $100,000 was donated in this tax year with the remaining $40,000 to be donated in the next tax year.

IN NEW business, Mary Ann Heidemann, the Community and Economic Development Agent, told the CDC/EDC board members she would like permission to write a grant application for the old hangar at the airport.

?There?s a possibility there may be a transportation enhancement grant available,? Heidemann said. ?It?s based on restoring a historic transportation building.? The question of eligibility revolves around whether the building could be considered surface transportation, because it?s connected to air transportation.

The building also has been designated as eligible for the National Registry for historical buildings because it was built in the 1930s by the WPA, and as such may not be destroyed, so as Heidemann says, ?It just sits there and rots!? ?This is just in the investigative phase,? Heidemann said. ?If it were eligible for the grant it would be for 80 percent ? that also would allow us to finish that road from Park Drive to the hangar. All the utilities are in.? The board gave Heidemann permission to write the grant if deemed eligible.

A SET OF EVENTS tied to the discovery of information uncovered during the environmental assessment has led to a new idea by Heidemann. ?As a National Registry Building, we would have to negotiate with the state preservation office as to its use,? Heidemann said. There were several options discussed including a new CDC/EDC office with storage in the main part of the building, or a museum being developed within its structure.

It cannot be used again as a hangar because of its location, and there is a pending contribution of $100,000 for a new hangar in memory of a female pilot, with the details still being worked out. ?It is undergoing legal clarification,? Heidemann told the board. ?The foundation for a new hangar should be up by next spring.?

The old hangar is large enough for three airplanes wing-to-wing and is about two stories high with an office area on one side. ?The idea of a transportation museum came up because the state will easily fund a transportation museum. And because it was built by the WPA, it is one of many Depression-era resources we have here, along with the aerial sign on the field,? Heidemann said.

HEIDEMANN SAID those De

pression-era sites also included the Rogers City Post Office with its WPA mural, a CCC Camp at Ocqueoc and all the buildings at a state park built by the CCC including buildings at Long Lake Park owned by Alpena County but located in Presque Isle County. ?Building official Jim Zakshesky?s grandfather was with the CCC and he related to Jim and his father all about the roads they built. That information got MDOT very excited,? Heidemann said. ?If we could tie that in with a Depression-era trail ? it also would tie into tourism. If they could identify the roads built by the CCC, MDOT was saying that would be exciting.?

MDOT wanted to know if there could be a room in the hangar that would be an interpretation center to explain all that information. ?Explicit research already was done as part of the environmental assessment that researched the old hangar, so we have a nice history of the hangar with pictures in a report,? Heidemann added.