In November of 2019, the City of Tallassee was awarded a $250,000 Community Development Block Grant through the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs (ADECA). The grant has a 10% match, which means the city will have a total of $275,000 to fund the demolition of dilapidated structures throughout the city.
Municipal building inspector, Andy Coker, delivered an update on the grant process. According to Coker, the city will begin to take bids on the project in the near future.
"At the next council meeting, there will be a packet, an actual bid packet," he said. "The actual bid packet that will go out for this first batch."
The Tallassee City Council will have a approve the bid to demolish the delipidated structures in the community.
"It will be a 10-day bid," Coker explained.
There is already some interest in the demolition project.
"We have three local people that are calling about it," Coker said. "We are going to try to get as many people as possible to participate so we can get a better price."
Councilman Bill Godwin asked if any of the rundown structures on the city's main thoroughfare would be demolished.
"Not in this first batch," Coker said.
The structures set for demolition are area neighborhoods.
"This is a health hazard. These are, a lot of these are, half of them are gone and falling in and you can see through them," Mayor John Hammock said.
One structure is on N. Dubois Street and the other is S. Dubois Street, the others set for demolition are located in the Jordanville community.
In the future, there will be a few dilapidated structures on the main thoroughfare that will eventually come down.
"We have two on the main thoroughfare but one has some stuff that the guy wants to get out, and the other will go the next batch," Coker said.
An estimated 27 dilapidated structures will be demolished with the $275,000.
Since 1982, ADECA has administered the state's Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program with funding provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The program is available to all Non-Entitlement communities that meet applicable threshold requirements.
ADECA annually awards CDBG money for the large city, small city, and county categories. Applicants are scored based on several competitive factors including community need, cost efficiency, appropriateness, and impact. Applications deadlines are announced during the annual workshop in the first quarter of the year.
