HARMONY — The borough will host a public meeting at the end of the month to discuss what projects to fund using its downtown revitalization grant.

Harmony and Zelienople jointly applied for, and received, a Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant through the commonwealth, splitting between themselves $500,000 in grant money. Zelienople received two-thirds of the funds, while Harmony will make use of the remaining one-third, or about $166,000.

Since September, residents of the borough have had the opportunity to provide input on how to best utilize the money. After an outside consultant provided its recommendation, which the borough found to partly be financially unfeasible, residents will again have that opportunity Feb. 25.

Downtown Redevelopment Services provided to the borough a list of possibilities, the most controversial of which would have been to gradually close the Main Street section of the town's main square. The totality of those recommendations, however, would cost the borough nearly twice what it's afforded in grant funds.

“The bill from what Ben (Levenger, DRS president) suggested came in at $330,000, plus we have to make a match,” Council President Greg Such said.

Harmony will likely, rather than choosing the whole swath of DRS recommendations, choose piecemeal from it. As such, borough council will discuss what projects are more necessary or desired than others.

“What we have to do is figure out how to use the grant money to its best advantage to get as much done with the money we have,” Such said.

The list of recommendations from DRS included major renovations to the borough square, including the installation of cobblestone, building new sidewalks and placing in new vegetation. In the second phase — which would hypothetically have occurred several years following this early renovation, if at all — the Main Street of the square would have closed, while retaining street traffic on Mercer Street.

At previous meetings, Mayor Cathy Rape said smaller projects like improving signage, planting flowers and making the borough's streetlights more uniform, would have a major impact. Those projects were included on the DRS list as well.

No solid plans are in place for the use of grant funds, and no vote is expected at the Feb. 25 meeting.