Cedar Rapids locks up $750,000 Vision Iowa grant for NewBo City Market

The NewBo City Market secured a $750,000 grant on Wednesday in the form of a state Community Attraction & Tourism (CAT) award from the Vision Iowa Board.

City Manager Jeff Pomeranz on Wednesday morning phoned to report the Vision Iowa Board's award for the market project.

"There are limited funds available, and we feel just fantastic that the Vision Iowa Board supported our application and the NewBo project," Pomeranz said after the board award.

Sarah Ordover, board president of Cedar Rapids City Market Inc., accompanied Pomeranz to the state board meeting in Des Moines and said she was "grateful and thrilled" at the Vision Iowa Board's action.

"It gives us a big boost and gives our donors confidence that we will close out our (fundraising) campaign and start with construction," Ordover said.

To date, she said the market has raised about $1.9 million in private funds for the project and expects to have sufficient private funds in hand in the months to come so the year-round market will be set to open in late summer or early fall at the former Quality Chef Foods site on Third Street SE in New Bohemia.

Ordover on Wednesday released new renderings of how the year-round market will transform the former industrial site.

She said the market's construction budget is $5.3 million, which includes $1.1 million of in-kind support from the city of Cedar Rapids for the value of the land and the cost of demolition on the market site.

The Cedar Rapids City Council has committed another $1.3 million in loan funds should the market need money to start construction as private funds continue to come in. Ordover on Wednesday, though, said the market does not expect it will need the city loan.

The amount of available state CAT funding is significantly less than the communities in Iowa had anticipated at the start of the year when the city of Cedar Rapids filed an application for funds.

Initially, the city had sought $8 million, $5 million of which was to go to the city's Convention Complex project and $1.5 million to the new library and $1.5 million to the NewBo City Market.

As the year progressed, the city scaled back its request for a share of a limited pot of CAT funds, which Jessica O'Riley, Vision Iowa program manager, on Wednesday said totaled $4.5 million for the current fiscal year prior to the Cedar Rapids award.

"We consider this a tremendous success," Pomeranz said of the $750,000 award.