ERIN MCDANIEL
City of Newton
NEWTON, Kan. — At Tuesday night’s meeting, the Newton City Commission approved an agreement with Polis: Cultural Planning for a historic survey of Newton’s downtown.
The consultant will survey the physical description, condition, historical significance, and changes over time to the downtown district’s 250 buildings. This will include buildings on Main Street as well as side streets between Plum and Oak in the Central Business District.
The process beginning this spring will include outreach to property owners and businesses downtown as well as public meetings to share information about the process and findings.
Downtown has two national historic districts separated by the BNSF Railway crossing that include buildings only along Main Street. This survey will provide a recommendation about possibly expanding the historic districts to include a larger area of downtown. Some building owners outside the current districts have expressed interest in exploring historic status in order to benefit from incentives such as historic tax credits for building improvements.
A Historic Preservation Fund grant from the State Historic Preservation Office will pay for $30,000 of the $33,000 contract.
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