Baldwin ? Overhead power lines dangle like cobwebs from power poles, potted flowers thirst for water and concrete sidewalks crumble alongside the original brick streets of Baldwin’s downtown business district.

Sandy Cardens can’t take it anymore.

“It doesn’t scream, ‘Come and sit down’ or ‘Come and shop and enjoy yourself here,'” said Cardens, who keeps a watchful eye on downtown from her Chamber of Commerce office, a converted gasoline station at the corner of Eighth and High streets. “We don’t want to be another Weston (Mo.) — that’s a little too much — but … we want to bring people to town, and one of the ways to do that is to increase the beauty in the downtown area.”

But there’s a price attached to the vision shared by Cardens, members of the chamber’s Downtown Beautification Committee and appointed and elected officials in Baldwin’s city government.

$461,000 price tag

According to city estimates, it would take as much as $461,000 to bury power lines, add landscaping boxes, plant ornamental trees and inlay old bricks into new concrete sidewalks.

“It would look similar to Lawrence’s (Massachusetts Street) streetscape, but it wouldn’t be quite as full — not as many trees and planters,” said Jeff Dingman, city administrator. “The idea would be to shoot for a 1930s-era type of look.”

Joanna Vesecky said she worried the project’s effects could go beyond offering the appearance of the 1930s and instead plunge small businesses into grim financial realities reminiscent of the Great Depression.

“I’m all for bringing business down here, but not if it means slitting our throats to do it,” said Vesecky, who operates Joanna’s Tanning and Hydro Massage inside her mother’s building just north of City Hall. “It’s a great idea, but it’s extremely expensive. A sign on the highway would be better.”

Baldwin city employee Garry Kelley paints a curb yellow in downtown Baldwin. Baldwin Chamber of Commerce officials have plans for a downtown beautification project. Kelley painted curbs Thursday.

Cost sharing

Absent securing a downtown revitalization grant or some other as-yet-unidentified source of money, officials would expect to divide up the costs of the beautification project into two parts:

l One-third of the entire project cost, or up to $153,667, would fall to city taxpayers as a whole.

l Two-thirds, or up to $307,333, would be shared among 31 downtown property owners in an area along High Street, from Sixth to Ninth streets; and along Seventh and Eighth streets, from Grove Street to the alley north of High Street.

The sharing of costs among downtown property owners would be based on the amount of street frontage each owner had, divided by the cost of upgrading that owner’s particular block.

Dingman said some blocks would cost less than others to overhaul, depending on the amount of materials necessary. Some sidewalks are wider than others, for example, and would require more concrete for replacement.

The $461,000 estimate for the entire project assumes all blocks would cost as much as the south side of High Street, between Seventh and Eighth streets. The block — expected to be downtown’s most expensive — would be the first one given a facelift, for an estimated materials cost of $42,000.

“That’s roughly $143 a linear foot,” Dingman said. “A lot of these blocks may be more like $80 a linear foot.”

An artist's rendering of proposed changes to the look of downtown Baldwin adds trees and street lamps, while eliminating suspended power lines.

Climate for support

But no matter how the costs are counted, divided, computed or assessed, one fact remained clear, said Sharon Vesecky, whose 99-year-old downtown building will be getting a new $10,000 roof this summer: It wouldn’t be easy.

For anyone.

“Without getting out a calculator, it sounds like a very high percentage of the annual gross income here,” said Sharon Vesecky, who has owned and operated Quilters Paradise for 15 years. “Most people haven’t a clue about what a business takes in down here — or, more importantly, what a business doesn’t take in down here.

“It’d be nice to do this project, but I don’t know that the business climate here in Baldwin can support it.”

Dingman is busy compiling specific information about how the project might work, so that he can meet with property owners to discuss how such a project might work and when. Also key: how much money each property owner would be responsible for paying.

Dingman notes that among the property owners affected, Baldwin State Bank would the largest. The downtown bank is based at the corner of Eighth and High, and also owns several other properties.

The city of Baldwin — with City Hall, the Baldwin Police Department, a public works building and city library all downtown — would own 13 percent of the area to be assessed for improvements.

To create a financing district to pay for the bulk of the project, the city would need to secure permission from owners of 51 percent of the land to be assessed.

Cardens is confident that Baldwin residents, and especially downtown property owners, will see the value of the project.

“The alternative is to have empty buildings,” said Cardens, who is working to revamp a vacant lumberyard building into an arts center downtown. “Rather than have empty buildings and have the property values go down, it seems to me that it would be better to pay a little bit every month now and increase the popularity of the town and the destination, and make all the buildings worth more in the long run.”