COVID-RELATED INCENTIVES
Small and locally owned businesses are facing numerous challenges related to the current COVID-disruption, including much lower foot-traffic than before March 2020, as many of our large employers’ return-to-work plans have been slowed or delayed. This reduction in daytime population creates a need for new customer-acquisition strategies, and in some cases, diversifying or re-structuring product/service scope.
Marketing Micro-Grant
The Downtown Marketing Micro-Grant is designed to assist small and locally-owned Downtown businesses in the retail, food, and beverage, and service sectors, with customer-acquisition and new-segment marketing strategies.
The Micro-Grant amounts are limited to $1,600 for each business. Up to $1,000 for implementation or improvement of an e-commerce platform or online store; and up to $1,000 for implementation of up to 6 months of social media marketing (social boost), with a cap at $600 for businesses also applying for the e-commerce support.
Grant funding is limited, the application process opens August 19, 2020, and will close when the grant funds are depleted.
Downtown Business Continuity Forgivable Loan
The Downtown Business Continuity – Forgivable Loan Program (Program) was designed to assist eligible businesses in serious jeopardy of permanent closure due solely to the recent COVID-19 pandemic and associated economic impacts.
The Program provided direct financial assistance to existing, locally-owned, eligible businesses, with a preference for ground-floor businesses operating continuously within the Central Business Improvement District (CBID map). See application for full details and requirements. Forgivable loan amounts up to $20,000.
Loan funding is currently depleted.