MOORHEAD — After there were no takers in a first attempt, the city of Moorhead is revamping its storefront rehabilitation program in hopes more businesses will take advantage this time around.

Downtown Moorhead Inc. CEO Derrick LaPoint recently told the Moorhead City Council that several businesses looked into the 2016 program, but found the multi-page paperwork exhaustive, and no applications were submitted. The new program has only one page — front and back.

The council approved the new attempt which will offer up to $25,000 to small businesses, with a match, to upgrade their storefronts. The "loan" from the program won't have to be repaid if the business stays five years in its location.

"It's basically a grant," LaPoint said.

Approximately $200,000 will be available to businesses to use for such projects as signs, exterior doors and windows, awnings, lighting, roofing, structural repair and landscape improvements.

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To make the effort more attractive, the name was changed to simply "Moorhead's Storefront Rehab Program."

LaPoint said Assistant City Manager Dan Mahli, who had previous experience working on downtown Fargo's similar program, was instrumental in making changes to make it more palatable to businesses.

Although the program is aimed at improving storefronts on the older buildings in downtown Moorhead, LaPoint said they would consider other businesses in the city, too. For example, he said the Tastee Freez on the fringe of downtown on Main Avenue Southeast was interested in revamping its storefront.

Councilwoman Shelly Dahlquist said she would like to see other businesses in the city be eligible for the effort, and LaPoint said they would probably look at requests on a "case-by-case basis."

"We want to be flexible," LaPoint said. However, he thought they could get more "bang for their buck" by fixing up storefronts downtown in older buildings.

He also said it was possible to find other dollars to use in the program if the interest was high enough.

The West Central Initiative will continue to serve as the loan administrator through its Moorhead Loan Fund. LaPoint said some details still need to be worked out, but that there has been some businesses interested already in addition to the Tastee-Freez.