BELFAST - Over two dozen businesses have applied for grant money to be used to improve facades and interiors, buy new equipment, upgrade machinery or technology and other projects that, in the words of the application literature, “will help expand or upgrade a business, and/or make it more sustainable.”

On a more basic level, the grants will allow businesses to make the kinds of upgrades that would normally mean borrowing money from a bank.

Economic Development Director Thomas Kittredge said the city received 27 applications for funding from a $150,000 Micro-Enterprise Assistance Grant awarded to the city earlier this year by the Maine Department of Economic & Community Development.

As part of the award, the city was charged with establishing a financial assistance program for small businesses. City officials opted to offer the money as grants rather than loans.

Kittredge said the city is also interested in a revolving loan fund but said there are more potential funding sources for that kind of program.

“This was one of the few programs where you can give a grant to a business,” he said.

A city advisory committee has met twice since the Sept 30 deadline to review the applications and winnow the field. Kittredge said the group was aiming to bring recommendations to the City Council at the regular Nov. 5 meeting.

Details of specific applications are protected during the initial review, Kittredge said, in part because they contain financial statements. Speaking generally, he said the applications have covered the full range of improvements allowed under the grant program.

“We’ve seen a wide variety,” he said. “Facades, new equipment, some people are doing interior renovations: windows, painting, walls, It runs the gamut.”

More information, including the names of applicant businesses and their proposals for the grant money would be made public when the applications go before the Council, he said.

Ethan Andrews can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com