WILTON – Chad Brand of Strong stretched this way and that as he painted the trim on a downtown building high above Main Street.

Brand, an employee of Stevens Painting Service in Phillips, worked in the cool afternoon under the sunny sky Tuesday.

The company has been renovating the facade of the building as part of the town’s downtown revitalization efforts. The building is owned by Gerald Skinders of Massachusetts and has several storefronts and apartments.

The town received a $100,000 Main Street facade grant from the Department of Economic and Community Development, Town Manager Peter Nielsen said.

He sent out 22 letters to Main Street businesses and he received seven responses, he said.

The facade grant is for exterior repairs that are visible to Main Street, he said.

There were eight responses, but one of the buildings was considered to be in good enough repair that it would not benefit from the grant, Nielsen said.

Each of the seven owners of the buildings have a different project planned and are in different stages, he said.

People are doing work now and others are doing it in the spring.

The work has to be completed between July 2004 and October 2005.

The owners had to get competitive bids, said Nielsen, who oversaw the bid process.

Some proposals included materials and labor, while others requested just material with the owners planning to do the work themselves.

Steve Harris, owner of the Wilton Hardware Store, plans some work, as does Randy Cousineau, who plans to put in some energy-efficient replacement windows on the second floor of the Bass-Wilson Building, Nielsen said.

The interesting thing, the town manager said, is that other businesses have started to spruce up their buildings, including KeyBank that painted its trim, to improve the downtown presence.