Small biz improves with Main Street grant

The new storefront was gleaming on a hot Tuesday afternoon, with worries that the heat might take off the new hues of teal and aqua. But there would be no summertime blues as owners Jacob and Manda Leal and Linda and Stuart Frazier met with members of the Gonzales Main Street and Gonzales Economic Development Corporation (EDC) boards to celebrate the first look of the old building's revitalization with a $30,000 facade grant provided by the organizations.

Main Street Administrator Barbara Friedrich was pleased with the results. The grants were actually for two store fronts, she said, right next to each other at $15,000 a piece. The project began as a way to obtain new office space for the owner's business but morphed into new areas that will house other small businesses, two of which are already settling in. A t-shirt shop will occupy one storefront while an art studio — Purple Cactus Potteri — has moved into another. Another large empty office awaits a new tenant with plenty of window retail.

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