Downtown Moberly is a Community Improvement District — a legal entity with its own board, its own tax and its own grant money. Most people who work downtown do not know it exists, and the grant it runs will pay 70 percent of a facade project up to $7,000.
What the CID actually is
The Downtown Moberly CID was established under Missouri’s Community Improvement District Act on February 21, 2017, by the City Council, on a petition from a majority of downtown residents and businesses. Its purpose is to fund a Downtown Revitalization Program — improvements to public and private property, collective promotion and similar work.
The district is run by a five-member board appointed by the City Council. The board’s names are not published on the district’s website.
Where the money comes from
The district’s own site never says. We found it in the Missouri Department of Revenue’s sales tax rate tables.
The ordinary Moberly rate is 8.4750 percent. Inside the Downtown Moberly CID it is 9.4750 percent. The district is funded by a 1 percent sales tax on retail sales within its boundary — not a property assessment.
Worth knowing: there is a second, separate CID in Moberly — the Moberly Crossings CID, also at 1 percent. They are different districts. If you are paying an extra cent on the dollar somewhere in town, that is which one it is.
The facade grant
Officially the Private Property Improvement Incentive Program. Terms revised June 18, 2025, so they are current even though most of the district’s website is not.
The money: up to 70 percent of project cost, capped at $7,000 per award. The pool is up to $70,000 per fiscal year — so up to ten projects at the maximum, or more at smaller amounts. One award per structure per year.
What it covers — exterior work only: tuckpointing, awnings, windows, doors and entryways, paint, siding and other exterior surfaces, exterior signage, and lighting if it goes with other qualifying work.
The two rules that will cost you the grant if you miss them. The application must be submitted before you start work — spend a dollar first and you are ineligible. And the project must be finished by June 30, the end of the CID’s fiscal year, which runs July to June.
There is no deadline, which sounds generous and is not. Applications are taken on a rolling basis against a fixed $70,000 pool, and funding has to be available for an application to be approved. Apply early in the July–June year.
Who qualifies
Private property only — government entities cannot apply. The property must be inside the CID. You must be current on all Randolph County real property taxes for any property you own in the district, and in good standing with City of Moberly utility billing.
The programme says plainly that priority goes to properties with health or safety issues identified by city code enforcement. And it tells you to call Code Enforcement at 660-269-8705 ext. 2042 or 2043 before you apply, to find out what the city will require.
Who decides
A committee of three: two from the Moberly Area Economic Development Corporation and one city code enforcement official. Applications are scored against a published rubric, and how you handled past projects can count.
It is a reimbursement, not a cheque up front
You pay, then you claim. To get paid back you need paid invoices and copies of the cheques front and back, or card receipts with the statements showing payment. And your contractors must provide lien waivers for all completed work before reimbursement is made. Budget for carrying the cost yourself for a while.
One of the programme’s four stated objectives is encouraging the use of local contractors.
To apply: the application is on the PPI programme page. Questions go to MAEDC, 115 N. Williams Street, Moberly · 660-263-8811. Ask for the office rather than a named person — MAEDC’s president and CEO left in June 2026 and the contact printed on the grant page is out of date.
What is down there
The district’s own boundary map and legal description are published as images that carry no readable text, so we cannot give you the boundary. What is inside it: the 4th Street Theatre, the Randolph County Historical Society, the Railroad Museum at Depot Park, The Fennel event centre at 315 N. Clark, and the Moberly Municipal Auditorium. Junk Junktion runs on Reed Street; the sidewalk sales at Reed and Coates.
Depot Park itself sits on Sturgeon Street beside City Hall, with a new trailhead linking downtown by bridge over Rollins Street into the city’s trail network.
What it has paid for
A $494,266 ARPA Community Revitalization Grant awarded jointly to the City of Moberly and the Depot District. Rounds of PPI grants. And an "entrepreneurial homesteading" idea, under which city-owned buildings are offered with subsidies and ownership earned through performance.
The district markets Moberly as a regional retail and entertainment hub drawing from 18 communities and more than 50,000 households, and notes that downtown sits in a federal Opportunity Zone.
A caution about the website
We will be straight about this because it affects anyone trying to use it. The Depot District’s blog last posted in March 2023, and has only four posts going back to 2019. The board of directors page is blank apart from one link. The map and legal description pages render empty. The obvious board URL returns a 404.
The PPI grant terms are the exception — those were updated in 2025 and are worth reading. For anything else, phone 660-263-8811.
Grant terms from the Downtown Moberly CID’s published programme document, revised June 2025. The CID sales tax rate is from the Missouri Department of Revenue’s January 2026 rate table. September 2026.
