It will be a whole new storefront. It will be a whole old storefront?
Either way, Patti’s Place For Hair historic fa’ade renovation will be ‘absolutely beautiful,? said Suzanne Perreault, Downtown Development Authority (DDA) executive director.
Using a matching grant from the DDA, worth $12,365, Patti’s Place owner Patti Snider is tearing off what she calls a ‘hideous? awning and wood fa’ade, and restoring the front of her 21 S. Broadway building to its original brick design. The entire project will cost between $28,000 and $30,000.
The renovation, she says, is just in time.
‘When they took [the awning] off, the builder told me I had probably another year and it was going to rot off,? she said, adding underneath the wood were layers and layers of building materials chronicling the buildings’s 100-year-old history.
But, she found out, through all that, it was always a home to a barber shop or hair salon. On the first layer, Snider says she even found an imprint of the old original barber pole.
‘The history of this place is so cool and I’d love to find out more of it,? she said.
The owner notes she’s also uncovering some ‘interesting? items, like old newspapers, in the walls and ceiling while the salon’s interior is spruced up, too.
Snider’s also given new life to an old ‘staircase to nowhere? as a retail display. The staircase used to be the only access point to her neighbor’s upstairs apartment. But renovations next door walled in the stairs, leaving it quite literally a path leading nowhere.
Snider says she’s doing the renovations to keep up the historic feel of downtown.
‘So many buildings are already ‘there,? so to me it’s silly if you don’t bring everything back to the original historical state. Sheet rock, vinyl siding ? they don’t match. It just doesn’t give it a nice, fluid look. You want people to come down and say, ‘Oh, what a cute little town,?? she said.
The DDA director says Patti’s Place has been high on the renovation grant list for a while, and is pleased with plans for the building.
‘I think what Patti is doing to her building is going to be absolutely beautiful,? said Perreault. ‘It’s a perfect example of what some buildings could have downtown. She really set a standard for building rehabs.?
According to Perreault, each year the DDA budgets funds to go for improvements that historically preserve buildings.
‘What we’re looking for from property owners is preserving historical character and architecture and matching the money that we put up,? she said, noting the grant allows owners to ‘make an initial investment with the grant when they otherwise might not be able to.?
Perreault says projects should preserve original architectural features like going back to brick, taking off aluminum siding and enlarging small windows.