A familiar building at the intersection of Oskaloosa's busiest intersection may soon see some new life. Officials with Mainstreet Oskaloosa are going after a grant to redevelop the Old Post Office building at A Avenue and Market into a seven unit apartment complex.

"We are in competition with many other communities, mainstreet communities, for these funds," says Main Street Director Jon Sullivan.

The funds come from the Iowa Economic Development Authority, which has a pool of 12 million dollars allocated for projects in communities of Oskaloosa's size. The project costs almost 3 million dollars and officials are asking for 1.3 million of that to come from the grant.

The group plans to get the rest from other sources that include private loans and tax credits. To stand out from other competitors for the grant, the mainstreet group has asked for a show of support from the Oskaloosa Housing Trust Fund Committee.

"Our housing trust fund is really focused on improving housing and addressing the needs of housing in town, where we can. And they approached us to help asking us to partner with them financially and so we agreed to help fund up to $58,000 toward the project," says OHTF Chairman Rob Taylor.

Officials say the project is an opportunity to continue redeveloping old and historic structures for new use.

"Projects like this which would be like the Trolly Place project and also the Grant and Lincoln project are those special opportunities where we can help a building that is well know is visible," says Taylor.

"We like to see the city grown we like to see us to be able to preserve some of our historic character that we have in the community. And for the last number of years that's what has been happening in our community and this is an opportunity to do this in another scale," says Sullivan.

Officials will find out if they've been awarded the grant in early May. If everything works out construction could begin in September and be completed in April of next year. The Oskaloosa City Council will hold a special meeting to consider endorsing Mainstreet's grant application Wednesday at 5.