Coming Soon: The Copeland Commons - A Main Street Revitalization Grant Recipient

A Piece of Our History Brought Back To Life

One of the privileges the Astoria Downtown Historic District Association enjoys as an Accredit Level Main Street program is the chance to apply to the Oregon Main Street Revitalization Grant. This important historic preservation grant offered through the State Historic Preservation Office has been an incredible boon to rural communities with historic downtowns. The most recent cycle of the grant increased the maximum award amount to $400,000 in matched funds and the ADHDA partnered with Innovative Housing to apply for this competitive grant to help refurbish what was once the State Hotel on Marine Drive to become The Copeland Commons - which will become 60+ low-income housing units. We were beyond excited to learn that we were announced as one of the recipients of this grant in 2025!

This grant has been a major resource for the preservation of our historic downtown buildings here in Astoria. With this award, it brings the total the ADHDA has passed through in restoration grant dollars to over $800,000 in just 10 years. This has been through this one grant program alone! The Liberty Theatre and The Merwyn were both recipients of this grant through our efforts in years past. Leveraging these funds is a great way to encourage property owners to take care of our beloved cultural assets and has led to some amazing results across the state.

Unexpected Roadblocks

The Copeland Commons project was delayed by some unexpected hurdles but appears to be back on track and aims to start construction in 2027. We hope to see some fencing go up around the sidewalk which will indicate that work will begin shortly. The City of Astoria has been a huge help with getting this project off the ground by allocating a small amount of the remaining acreage of one of the Urban Renewal Zones to this lot, allowing the City to help fund some of the work to meet their goals for housing.   

Sadly, the Oregon State Legislators chose not to allocate funding to the Oregon Main Street Revitalization Grant during the last budget cycle. While the program still exists, without current funding, there is no way to offer this grant currently. We will of course still receive the award for this project, but until such time that legislators choose to refund the program, this grant is no longer available. Given the impact this one grant has had here in Astoria this news came as a huge shock. We continue to advocate through our connections with Oregon Main Street to push legislators to refund the program. We hope to get this to their attention in a short legislative session, so we don’t have to wait till the possibility of not seeing this grant return until 2028/2029. If you are passionate about seeing our historic downtown assets preserved, consider reaching out to your representatives and requesting they refund the Oregon Main Street Revitalization Grant so we can help more buildings restore their beauty! Click the "Become A Supporter" button below and help us fight for more grant funding for our historic buildings!