For the past five months since the Westbury Business Improvement District (BID) unveiled its facade improvement program, BID board members and consultant Chris Hobbs have been hammering out the bugs in the program. Working on a volunteer basis and being new to the process of a facade improvement project, Hobbs said it has taken longer than planned to get the program up and running.

The BID had to develop guidelines from scratch for the architects and had to coordinate efforts with the Nassau County and the Village of Westbury.

But according to Hobbs, it should not be long before residents and merchants will begin to see the results of the work the BID has done in these last five months.

"We've accomplished a lot but you haven't seen anything," said Hobbs. At least not yet.

Alfredo's Pizzeria on Post Ave. is first on the list of stores prepared to undergo a face-lift. Etzel Insurance and Westbury Valet Cleaners and Launderers, both on Post, are next in line, according to Hobbs. Work is expected to begin in August.

Being a Nassau County Operation Downtown project, the facade improvement project is subject to fairly strict guidelines. A formal bidding process is used to select contractors and those contractors must meet county standards.

Plans are in the works for a number of other stores including Proschel's Florist, United Stationery, Post Cafe and Tear and Gershon. There are more than a handful of stores slated to begin the process of facade improvements next year.

"You're going to have a really, really unique main street that's going to stand out," said Hobbs.

In working on creating a new look, the BID and the village are stressing architectural details big and small from greenery to street lights. The streets are to be lit with slightly smaller versions of street lights that can be found in the historic district in Portland, Oregon. Matching lights will be mounted on store facades along Post Ave. Signage lights will be the old-fashioned, curved variety. Store signs will also be limited to a variety of wood signs, no neon, fluorescent or light boxes, said Hobbs.

The village will be adding the new street lights to Union Ave. in the next few years as well when the Long Island Rail Road's electrical lines are put underground.

And while plans for revitalizing the area may be ambitious, the BID is already planning ways to find additional funding sources for all it wants to accomplish. The BID has hired Jadwiga Brown of Corporate Image Management to head its fund-raising efforts.

Brown, who has built a career on finding ways to raise money for various organizations, has put together a plan for raising $75,000 for the BID's 1999-2000 budget. Her plan includes a combination of corporate sponsorship and grassroots initiatives.

She projects that the BID will be able to collect a minimum of $10,000 from corporate sponsors. By mid-July Brown and the BID will launch a letter-writing campaign to reach out to large corporations, many of which have local branches.

Confident that she and the BID will garner outside support, Brown said many corporations are committed to giving back to the communities they serve. She added that there will be businesses that will see the benefit of helping to make the community a viable one. Each business, she said, will be approached differently according to organization's specific interests or concerns.

"It's a hard sell," she said. "It's not an obvious benefit, but we'll find a way to do it I promise."

Aside from looking to corporations for donations, however, Brown said the BID will be asking community residents for support as well. Donation boxes will be placed in Westbury stores so customers can drop in their change or a dollar or two on their way out.

"These kinds of collections really add up and give residents a sense of being a part of it," said Brown who stressed the importance of having community buy-in. She wants to inspire residents to get involved and become excited by the potential for growth in the area.

Also a part of the plan is to establish sponsorship programs for the Post Ave. street lamps, the Village Gazebo and concerts to be held at the gazebo.

But according to Brown, perhaps one of the most important components of the fund-raising drive will be the support of the business owners themselves. She said she will be working closely with them to uncover leads pointing to corporations or individuals who will be interested in seeing the project succeed and offer monetary support.