The former director of the City of Springfield’s Planning and Development Department has been named director of Restore SGF.
Brendan Griesemer recently retired from the city. He will assume leadership of the nonprofit on January 16. Dana Elwell, retired senior vice president of Guaranty Bank, has served as Restore SGF’s interim director since June.
The goal of Restore SGF, which launched in 2021, is to improve housing conditions and raise residential property values in Springfield’s historic neighborhoods.
Restore SGF combines public and private funding to offer grants to homeowners for exterior home improvements.
The Block Challenge Grant Program awards grant money to neighbors who have formed teams in order to create a chain reaction of improvements. In September, 40 citizens joined the first Block Challenge Grant Program. In this first cycle, more than $170,000 was invested by neighbors, qualifying them for $70,000 in Restore SGF grants.
In a few weeks, Restore SGF will offer a down payment assistance program for first time home buyers in five selected neighborhoods. The nonprofit will provide qualifying homebuyers a $9,000 grant for down payment and closing costs. The borrower must contribute at least $1,500 of their own money.
As the two programs prove successful over time, Restore SGF hopes to expand the boundaries of its programming and make more neighborhoods eligible for funding with a goal of diverse, mixed-income neighborhoods with rising home prices and a variety of housing options.
Griesemer spent 27 years with the City of Springfield focusing on housing and neighborhoods. He created the Springfield Community Land Trust for affordable homeownership and authored the $2.1 million Neighborhood Stabilization grant to acquire and rehabilitate foreclosed houses. The city’s first “boarded buildings” ordinance was co-written by Griesemer as a means of encouraging housing redevelopment. And he collaborated with four local nonprofits to develop the Homeowner Emergency Loan Program (HELP).
Griesemer was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners in 2022. He holds a master’s degree in urban planning from the University of Kansas and a bachelor’s in community and regional planning from Missouri State University.
Griesemer joined the City of Springfield in 1996, moved up to assistant director of the Planning and Development Department in 2017, and, in May, 2023, he took the interim director vacancy. Besides Springfield, he worked in planning and economic development for the cities of Nixa, Kansas City, MO and Shawnee, Kan.