Washington is endorsing a grant application seeking up to a $500,000 grant to help bring businesses — new ones and expanding ones — to the former shirt factory on Brown Street.

During its meeting last week, the City Council gave is approval for Metropolitan Housing & Community Development Corp. to submit an application seeking the building re-use grant from the North Carolina Department of Commerce. Metropolitan proposes to “start a call center that would provide 40 full time jobs complete with employee major medical health insurance,” according to a memorandum from City Manager Bobby Roberson to the council and mayor. A section of the former factory would be renovated to house the call center, according to the memorandum.

The call center would be operated 12 hours a day by Metropolis Contract Services, which would handle incoming and outgoing calls in a bilingual manner — English and Spanish. The call center, according to a city document, would do the following:

• generate sales leads;

• set appointments;

• market research;

• surveys (including statistical analysis and political surveys);

• first-level help desk;

• database or mailing-list information;

• business development;

• point-of-sale product promotion;

• seminar and conference invitations.

Under the grant conditions, the city would be required to contribute $25,000 toward the project.

The council also gave the green light to Metropolitan seeking a $250,000 grant to help provide water and sewer service to the A.G. Dunston Manor, a 50-bed assisted-living facility near Eastern Elementary School in Washington. The estimated project cost (construction, equipment and furniture) is $4.7 million.

Councilman Doug Mercer said he wants the city to be protected from any “clawbacks” should the project not meet the grant requirements. “If at some point in the future these grants are given to the city or to Metropolitan, that we would require a substantial documentation and … support, to potentially a letter of credit, to ensure that for potential clawbacks we have the money available,” he said

At the council’s March 28 meeting, Martyn Johnson, Beaufort County’s economic developer, said the grant provides $12,500 for each job expected to be created. Those jobs, according to the grant conditions, must be full-time positions for at least six months, and employers would pay 50 percent of health insurance for their workers. Without a clawback protection in place, the city could be liable for reimbursing the state money if the grant’s job-creation conditions are not met.