This three-year $1,000,000 Dunham Fund start-up grant will assist Seize the Future to supplement existing Aurora programs for downtown property owners through its newly created Invest Aurora Revolving Loan Fund. $250,000 will be distributed in 2016, $500,000 in 2017, $250,000 in 2018.
Invest Aurora will work with Aurora Downtown, the association of downtown business and property owners, to identify prospective redevelopment projects and to assist in the marketing of the Revolving Loan Fund. Loans will be issued in amounts not to exceed $150,000, and leveraged in tandem with available loan and grant programs and must be used for eligible property rehabilitation projects only.
Loans will be issued at market rate, financed between 10 and 20 years and may equal up to 100% of property value and will be approved by a board of community financial partners, made up of leveraged donors to the Revolving Loan Fund. In this way, financial partners will have the opportunity to finance the loan if viable through their own commercial financial institutions. If the loan is not commercially viable, it will be financed through the Revolving Loan Fund. Invest Aurora collaborates with Aurora Downtown and their Business Attraction and Retention grant.
It also collaborates with Waubonsee Community College’s Small Business Development Center and the Small Business Administration’s Women’s Business Development Center which provide hands-on business plan development assistance, and can help connect clients to specialized consulting services.