EDA specialist Amber Patten, left, and EDA board chairman John Herman, right, present Jason Garvick, center, with the County EDA Business Spotlight Award for D & J Seeds of Kiester. The business was founded by Jason’s dad, Dale, over 40 years ago.

“How can we revitalize Faribault County’s downtown business areas?”

That was the question Faribault County EDA specialist Amber Patten posed to the county EDA board at their meeting in Kiester on March 18.

“There are a lot of buildings which are sitting empty or are just being used for storage on the Main Streets of our county’s smaller towns,” Patten said. “We would like to search for a way to provide low-cost solutions for improving downtown aesthetics and functionality.”

One of the steps, according to Patten, will be to engage property owners and address the vacant buildings.

It was pointed out that some of the owners are absentee landlords.

Patten provided information from an organization which claims to provide practical, expert-driven solutions for sustainable downtown revitalization.

“There is a cost to this program and I am just presenting this for information purposes at this time,” Patten explained. “If we would decide to move forward with something like this we would want to seek funding grants to help offset the cost of the program.”

Board members showed interest and asked Patten to present some case studies to the board of where the talked-about program has worked in other small towns.

EDA specialist Kendra Reineking was also at the meeting and updated the board on the Miller’s Corner property.

“The property has now been listed for sale and has already had two showings to interested buyers,” Reineking commented. “Any interested party can speak with Amanda Johnson at O/NE Realty. The listed price is $50,000 and includes the inventory currently inside the building”

During their staff report, Patten and Reineking shared they were working with the city of Blue Earth and county officials Brian Hov and Sarah Van Moer regarding tax abatement for a property at 504 East Seventh Street in Blue Earth.

“The tax abatement should be approved by the commissioners at the first County Board meeting in April,” Patten said.

They also reported that the Golden Bubble had reached out to the EDA and wanted to know what the amount of their loan payoff would be.

“We also sent out survey questions to help gather insight from small communities in Faribault and Martin Counties to guide our joint marketing efforts,” Patten commented. “The survey went out on Monday, March 3.”

A thank you note to the EDA from Lynn Anderson, the coordinator for Little Giants, was shared with the group. The note expressed appreciation for the grant funding Little Giants received which helped people to obtain their child development associate degree.

Finally, the Business Spotlight Award was presented to Jason Garvick of D & J Seeds of Kiester.

Garvick was on hand to accept the award and explained that his father, Dale, had started the seed business over 40 years ago.

“We moved to our new location just north of Kiester a little over a year ago,” Garvick said. “It is good to be on a hard-surface road.”

D & J Seeds is a dealer for Pioneer Seeds.

“My father, Dale, still is involved in the operation,” Garvick noted. “We do not have a defined sales area but we have customers from Albert Lea to Frost and from near Wells to across the border in Iowa.”