Smithfield’s Town Council voted unanimously on April 1 to accept a $25,000 grant from Historic Smithfield to fund a preliminary plan for beautifying Grace Street.

The nonprofit organization was formed more than 30 years ago, originally to revitalize Main Street with brick sidewalks, sculptures and historic-style street lamps.

The Grace Street grant requires a $5,200 match by the town and will cover the $30,200 cost of retaining engineering firm Kimley-Horn to develop the plan. According to a Feb. 7 memorandum from Town Manager Michael Stallings to the Town Council, the scope of work includes a conceptual layout and illustrations for streetscape improvements beginning at the Isle of Wight Christian Outreach Program headquarters at 402 Grace St. and ending at Grace’s intersection with North Mason Street. The grant will not fund actual construction.

The Town Council previously discussed the offer in February and March. The approved resolution appropriates the $25,000 offer into the town’s 2024-25 general fund operating budget and directs Stallings to execute the agreement with Kimley-Horn.

Smithfield Times Publisher Emeritus John Edwards, one of the founding members of Historic Smithfield, told the Times in March that Grace Street has become a neglected part of the historic district.

In 2022, the town used just under $40,000 in federal COVID-19 relief money to fund repairs to the most heavily worn sections of Grace Street’s sidewalks. The Virginia Department of Transportation also has plans to replace damaged sections of sidewalk and curb-and-cutter infrastructure as a first phase of the road’s eventual repaving in 2026. Edwards said the goal of offering the grant now is for the town and VDOT to agree on elements such as new sidewalks while VDOT is already working on the street.

Edwards said the Kimley-Horn engineers would present two improvement options to the Town Council, which would then decide if either was of interest.

Edwards said Kimley-Horn would be looking at sidewalk options the town can consider if it chooses to improve the streetscape, as well as planting areas between the sidewalks and the street. Edwards said there’s also potential to add a stretch of sidewalk where none exists now along the south side of the 200 block between the fire station and North Mason Street, and to better define the town-owned parking lot accessed from Grace that serves the Town Hall on Institute Street. He said he hopes the town will solicit public input before selecting a final design.

Edwards and other downtown business owners organized Historic Smithfield in 1989, a year after former Smithfield Foods Chairman Joseph Luter III offered what he called a “challenge grant” in which Smithfield Packing Co. and Gwaltney Ltd. of Smithfield would each contribute $100,000 to revitalize Main Street.The group’s fundraising efforts in the 1990s ended up surpassing Luter’s ask, at $250,000.