ATHOL — The town of Athol is among Massachusetts communities that were recently awarded grant monies to assist local businesses impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. The grants were awarded under the state’s Local Rapid Recovery Planning program overseen by the Department of Housing and Community Development. Statewide, 125 communities were awarded a total of $9.5 million, with Athol’s slice of the pie amounting to $60,000.

Planning and Development Director Eric Smith said the $60,000 awarded to Athol will be used to bolster businesses in downtown Athol.

“Essentially,” said Smith, “this program is designed to help communities develop what they’re calling ‘rapid recovery’ plans for downtowns and commercial districts post-COVID. Obviously, we’re focusing on downtown Athol under this grant.”

Smith said the first phase of the program calls for the completion of a business survey. He said the survey was put together by Peg Barringer, the Director of Economic Development Consulting for FinePoint Associates, a Brookline-based consulting firm.

“She actually knows Athol pretty well,” he said, “because she did our housing study for downtown last year, and also did our retail market assessment back in 2017.

“The survey is designed for business establishments, and that includes both for profit and nonprofit businesses, like North Quabbin Recovery Center or any kind of full-service group; they can also participate in this survey.”

Smith said the survey asks business owners/operators to answer a variety of questions.

“Essentially, they want to know what kind of business you are, the industrial classification code along with the business category,” he explained. “Then they start getting into questions like impacts on their businesses from COVID.

“Besides just talking about COVID, they also want to learn about what folks feel about the downtown commercial district they’re located in, like the condition of the sidewalks, the conditions of the buildings, access and safety for employees and customers, things like that.”

Smith said the survey will allow town officials to better understand the kinds of issues faced by downtown businesses.

“We can then try to make changes, whether it’s zoning changes or they need more programs. We do have some assistance programs for people right now for COVID and we’re still waiting for people to make full use of those programs — the funds that are still available.”

Once the complete results of the survey are known, said Smith, the town will be better equipped to act.

“If we see a bunch of people saying, ‘I’ve tried to improve my business but the zoning is causing me problems,’ he continued, “or there are safety issues, or there are things that we could do related to regulations, or from a public safety standpoint to help improve downtown Athol, then we’ll be able to deal with those issues and make it more business-friendly.”

Smith said the town is working with Stantec Professional Services Co., headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta.

“They’re kind of like our main provider, our main conduit,” he said. “Then there is a team of consultants. They’re bringing some folks here to basically look at our downtown, to look at the conditions of the buildings, the streets, and provide some recommendations, and hopefully help with some funding mechanisms to make the improvements we’d like to make.”

Ultimately, Smith stressed, a lot of what eventually happens depends on the response to the survey. Not only will the results point to those issues that need to be addressed to help existing businesses, they will also help when it comes to formulating a business recruitment strategy for downtown Athol.

Smith said he couldn’t stress enough the importance of local businesses taking the time to complete the survey.

Businesses can access the survey by logging onto: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LRRPBiz.

A flyer being distributed to businesses also includes a QR code to access the survey.