— The fledgling Grand Center for Arts and Culture in New Ulm was the top area winner in a list of historical and cultural heritage grants announced this week, but a variety of organizations are getting a cut of the Legacy Act sales tax proceeds allocated to history and culture.

Restoration of an historic building in New Richland, digitizing of back issues of the MSU Reporter, and the arrival in St. Peter of a traveling exhibit on Minnesota’s natural disasters are among the Legacy Act appropriations.

The $100,000 grant for New Ulm will be used for the renovation — including the addition of an elevator and stairway improvements to improve accessibility — of the historic Grand Hotel into a new arts center. Organizers hope to complete the first phase of the renovation by October, which will also feature an art gallery.

The second phase will add studios to the third floor, including yoga and dance space and possibly an apartment for an artist-in-residence, said Anne Makepeace.

The great-great-great granddaughter of the hotel’s founder, Makepeace and her husband John bought the building 11 years ago with the intention of using it in a way that would benefit the entire community.

“We wanted it to have a public purpose,” Makepeace said.

The building will soon be turned over to the nonprofit Grand Center for Arts and Culture. Space will be leased to a privately owned restaurant called “Artisans at the Grand” on the first floor, with a goal of opening by March 1.

The restaurant will also provide the liquor and food for the existing Grand Kabaret, which will continue its musical and theatrical performances with the nonprofit handling the booking of talent.

It’s a $1.5 million renovation project in all, and the $100,000 Legacy Act grant brings the total raised through various grants and donations to nearly $900,000, according to Makepeace.

Just behind that grant is a $99,000 appropriation for the restoration and preservation of the 110-year-old Stranger’s Lodge in New Richland. The building, which is in the National Register of Historic Places, was built by the New Richland chapter of the Independent Order of Oddfellows.

Also among the $3.8 million in grants awarded this week was $48,000 for the Waseca County Historical Society to make its facility more accessible for people with disabilities.

Smaller grants awarded in 2011 to area museums and cultural efforts included $7,000 for a Dakota language oral history project in Morton, $7,000 for microfilm scanner for the Nicollet County Historical Society to improve access to the society’s documents, $7,000 to Minnesota State University’s Library Services to provide digital preservation and access to editions of the student newspaper printed from 1926 to 1975.

 A $25,000 grant will cover the second phase of the transcription and translation of stories told by Dakota elders relating to the Jeffers Petroglyphs. The stories will be made available to students, teachers and the general public visiting the historic site in Cottonwood County and will also be available via the Internet and DVD.

A $200,000 allocation of Legacy Act money is covering the cost of sending five exhibits created by the Minnesota Historical Society to museums around the state in 2012. The only one coming to the Mankato area is “Minnesota Disasters” — arriving at St. Peter’s Treaty Site History Center on March 31 for a nearly two-month run — which features stories of Minnesotans’ strength and survival in the face of everything from grasshopper infestations to snow storms to fires and floods.

Nicollet County Historical Society Executive Director Ben Leonard said people shouldn’t expect a large exhibit that will fill up a gallery, but he said it’s an interesting look at the variety of calamities that have struck the state — including the 1998 tornado that devastated St. Peter.

“Certainly disasters are something the Minnesota River Valley is painfully aware of,” Leonard said.