The rapidly unfolding arts neighborhood of Collinwood has just landed another big grant on top of all the others it’s won in the last several years. On Mon 7/13 the Northeast Shores Community Development Corporation announced that it had won a second highly competitive grant from ArtPlace America, this one for $200,000. It had previous won $500,000 for a program to promote the area to artists as a place to live.
The exact allocation of the money will be decided by community residents in the “Ballot Box Project.” Groups of residents, artists, area employees and others will met to brainstorm arts projects to improve the quality of life in the area, after which the community will vote on the projects to be funded.
The area also got $5.5 million in government money for the Waterloo Streetscape project, which was completed last fall. And it got $1 million from the Kresge Foundation to help Waterloo businesses attract people to the area while the roadwork was going on.