Ione historic Main Street downtown is in line to receive a face lift, courtesy of nearly $285,000 in grant money that city officials will decide how to spend in the coming weeks. Photo by: Jerry Budrick

The march of time will not trample Ione's historic downtown.

Grant money totaling nearly $285,000 is in hand for the city to help preserve the 19th-century feel of its central sector.

City council members on March 18 called for a town hall meeting in early April to lay out details of how Ione would benefit from joining the Main Street program run by the nonprofit, National Trust for Historic Preservation.

"We're in the very beginning stages," noted City Manager Kim Kerr.

The goals of a Main Street program include developing a local economy, staging cultural events and educating local students and others on the area's history.

"When historic buildings and neighborhoods are torn down or allowed to deteriorate, a part of our past disappears forever. When that happens, we lose history that helps us know who we are, and we lose opportunities to live and work in the kinds of interesting and attractive surroundings that older buildings can provide," the national preservation trust said in a Web posting.

A town hall meeting on the Ione Community Preservation Project, as the effort will be known, is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday, April 2, with the location tentatively set at Evelyn Bishop Hall, 600 So. Church St.

"We'll be working with schools - there's a lot of history here," Kerr said. "We'll see what we can do. For example, a fourth-grade history class already attends an Admission Day event in Train Park."

Also contemplated in the project is a building-facade improvement effort in downtown, city documents show. The facades that could get face-lifts stand, appropriately enough, on Ione's Main Street.

"The program offers up to $2,500 in matching funds and, in certain cases, design assistance to businesses in the Ione Main Street program area in order to improve the appearance of individual building facades, signs and awnings, as well as the overall look of the district," a city staff report states.

Some time in April, council members are expected to take some action regarding a proposed allocation to the Main Street program of the $284,775 in federal grant money.

A third spending target for the money is an update of a city redevelopment plan.

"Based on the outcome April 2, I may bring the council a report on the seventh," Kerr said. "Maybe a piecemeal allocation of the money (will be chosen)."

The PMC consulting firm, which could be hired in the proposed project, submitted a billing-rate schedule for its 11 officials, ranging from project director at $140 an hour to assistant planner at $75 an hour. If all PMC officials happened to work on the project for a particular hour, the bill would be $1,230.