A $400,000 Oregon Main Street Revitalization grant will support installing an elevator in the Baker Loan and Trust Building, on the right end of this block, on Main Street in Baker City. (Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald)

Also, Halfway businesses will get new roofs

BAKER CITY — The Oregon Main Street Revitalization program has awarded two grants to Baker County.

Baker City Downtown was awarded a $400,000 grant to support installing an elevator in the Baker Loan and Trust Building on Main Street, and United Community Partners received $121,241 to replace roofs on five Halfway businesses.

The elevator

The building is owned by Tribe Fans LLC — Bob Moon and Kyra Rohner. According to a press release, the grant will be used to install an elevator that will service all three floors of the Baker Loan and Trust Building and allow for future development of the upper floors in the connected adjoining Bohn Building (Hatch and TEC Copier Systems) and Osborn Building (BELLA Main Street Market).

“BCD is incredibly excited to win this grant to support the continued revitalization of our community, especially for a project that will have the positive benefit of impacting not just one building downtown, but three,” said Ariel Reker, executive director of Baker City Downtown.

Baker City Downtown’s mission is “to preserve and enhance the character and vitality of our community through the beautification, promotion, and development of downtown Baker City.”

Reker said addressing upper floor spaces is a priority for the National Main Street Center, especially creating ADA-accessible upper floor living spaces that are within historic downtown commercial districts.

“The Baker Loan and Trust Building, located in the center of downtown Baker City, has been a labor of love for our whole family since we purchased the building in 2018. We are excited about the new opportunities this project will offer to this building as well as the Osborne and Bohn buildings,” Moon said.

The Oregon Main Street Revitalization Grant is funded by lottery bond dollars authorized by the Oregon State Legislature. The program was created in 2017 and is offered every other year. Since its creation, BCD has won the grant five times — each year it was offered, Reker said.

In past years, the maximum grant award was $200,000, but in 2025 the amount was doubled to $400,000.

The Oregon Main Street Revitalization Grant is only open to groups participating in Oregon Main Street who are in good standing, Reker said.

BCD accepted letters of intent from Jan. 13 to Feb. 14 this year, and 11 were submitted totaling $3.6 million in potential projects.

The BCD grants committee reviewed those applications and selected the top three for site visits.

“Following the site visits, the BCD grants committee unanimously voted to select the Baker Loan & Trust Building for their top applicant,” Reker said.

She said the state grant program received 76 applications, and selected 35 for a total of $10.6 million awarded across the state.

“We want to thank the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department for selecting us,” Rohner said.

The Baker Loan & Trust Building was built in 1911 to replace a previous bank building that burned to the ground, along with half the block, Reker said. The adjoining buildings (Osborn and Bohn) were built to match and share a common stairwell and second floor hallway.

Moon and Rohner expressed thanks to Reker for writing the grant, Sid Johnson & Co. for developing the project, letters of support from Carolyn Kulog, Loran Joseph, Beverly Calder and Barbara Sidway, and research by Gary Dielman.

Halfway roofs

United Community Partners applied for the grant on behalf of their Halfway Main Street project, which is part of the Oregon Main Street program. United Community Partners is a nonprofit formed in 2000, and has an all-volunteer board, said president Pam Conley.

“We promote community-led projects,” she said. “We do things that make our area a great place to live and raise a family.”

Conley said the Halfway Main Street project came out of their Pine Valley 2050 project, which identified the revitalization of the downtown area in a community survey. The Halfway Main Street committee, composed of local business owners and community members, identified potential grant opportunities to help businesses thrive. She said the winter of 2016-2017 was hard on roofs in the valley, and many needed repairs.

The grant pays 70% of the cost, and business owners are responsible for the remaining 30%. Conley said all have already received bids from contractors.

“They’re ready to get rolling,” she said.

The five businesses are:

• Main Street Tire and Garage
• Halfway Market and Mercantile
• Halfway Sober liquor store
• The Two Color Building
• Mamaste