Under the proposed agreement between the city and HUB on Main LLC, the company will create an “open-air entertainment and ‘backyard’ gathering space.”

The corner building at 501 Main would be converted into a cocktail bar with an apartment on the second floor. The company’s total project investment is to be about $580,000, and the company would pay $1 for the properties.

Here is what the property to be occupied by HUB on Main looks like now. PROVIDED

Dan Bates, the president and CEO of the Greater Hamilton Chamber of Commerce, said the development is significant, close to the the intersection of Main Street with Millville and Eaton avenues that will soon host a 25-foot-tall sculpture called “Embrace.”

“That is a critical block,” Bates said. “And that is the kind-of missing piece that pulls the rest of Main Street together, all the way down to Eaton and Millville (avenues).”

“So I think with the sculpture going in hopefully next month, that’s going to be the gateway from the west to the downtown area,” Bates said. “If we can fill in those critical holes, I think it’s huge to really pulling the whole district together, so that then it becomes a viable district for shopping, dining, walking, all the way from Eaton to Martin Luther King (Boulevard).”

This 25-foot-tall sculpture of brushed stainless steel called Embrace is planned in 2020 for Hamilton’s intersection of Main Street with Millville and Eaton avenues. PROVIDED

The project is to be completed in two phases: Phase 1 is completion of the street-level bar at 501 Main and the adjacent “food-truck park and outdoor entertainment area.”

Construction is to start this month with completion in June 2021. The first phase is estimated to cost $535,000. The second phase is completion of the apartment, at an estimated cost of $45,000, by June of 2022. The company would face fines of $10,000 apiece for missing either of those deadlines.

The city estimates it will receive an additional $37,500 in property taxes between 2021 and 2025 with the added investment.