Zack Pike, owner of Pike Project Development, stands Dec. 20, 2023, amid destroyed windows in the basement of the former Maine Spinning Mill building in Skowhegan. The basement was inundated with 5 feet of water when the Kennebec River flooded during the Dec. 18 and 19 storm. The project received a $100,000 grant from the state for repairs. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel, file

The state is giving $5.8 million to 109 small businesses across Maine to help them recover from severe winter storms, Gov. Janet Mills announced Thursday.

The grants, which range from around $2,000 to $100,000, will be awarded by the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development to businesses affected by storms in December and January.

The money is part of a $60 million storm relief package approved by Mills and the Legislature in May. That included $21.2 million awarded last month to rebuild or repair 68 working waterfronts.

The $5.8 million for small businesses is the first round of money awarded from the $10 million Business Recovery and Resilience Fund. The state intends to issue a second round of grants with remaining funding over the next few months.

The money will be given to businesses and organizations across all 16 Maine counties to help cover design, permitting and construction costs of projects that address both recovery from damage caused by winter storms over the last year and minimizing future storm damage.

The state said these grants are conditional, pending an eligibility review of the businesses’ project proposals. Eligible projects include upgrades to infrastructure and drainage systems, moving electrical or business equipment – or the business itself – to a safer location, and buying insurance.

Mimi Fox, executive director of the Kennebunk Beach Improvement Association, said the organization is facing $2.2 million in rebuilding costs after damage from the January storms. The organization, which hosts summer classes and beach activities for 300 children a week, applied for $100,000 from the state fund and got it.

The facility sits between Mother’s Beach and The Cove in Kennebunk and includes two buildings, a playground, a pool, docks and other structures. Fox said the beach lost 8 to 9 feet of sand, the roadbed was completely exposed, and 3 feet of sand washed into the pool, which took three days to dredge and refill. The pier was also badly damaged, Fox said, and flooding in the buildings ruined their water heaters.

The grant, Fox said, will primarily go to rebuilding the organization’s playground, which sits on sand dunes and was completely destroyed by the storms. Fox said she expects the entire rebuilding process for the playground, which includes making it more resilient to future storm damage, to cost around $450,000, and intends to begin work on it in the offseason, starting Aug. 16.

Fox said the $100,000 is the only money the organization is receiving from the state in relief grants, but that it may look for other funding sources to complete the project. The organization has fundraised $1.65 million since the storms to cover rebuilding costs.

“I spent 10 years in fundraising. State and federal funding is not very abundant. It is very exciting that we got $100,000. You hope that you’re going to get at least half,” Fox said.

Debbie Bowles, owner of the boutique hotel Sand Dollar House & Suites on Long Beach Avenue in York across from the beach, was significantly damaged by abnormally high tides during the January storms. The hotel, listed under LLC LeeLouis Properties, also received $100,000 from the state.

Bowles said that one of the hotel’s buildings is open seasonally and the other one, closer to the beach, is open year-round. No one was in the front building when the storms hit, she said, but the entire basement flooded and the electric system, which served both buildings, needed to be replaced. Renovations needed to reopen by June cost over $250,000 Bowles said.

The hotel will use the grant to cover most of the $179,000 cost of lifting the rear building 8 to 10 feet this fall, Bowles said, as a preventative measure against future storms. Bowles said the hotel intends to lift the front building, too, but needs to come up with the money. She said they may try to acquire a loan from the Small Business Administration in Maine.

“I’m grateful for the governor and the state of Maine,” Bowles said.