The Business District Initiative is designed to maximize the potential of main streets and commercial nodes.
Donor Name: Hennepin County
State: Minnesota
County: Hennepin County (MN)
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 03/27/2025
Size of the Grant: $10,000 to $100,000
Grant Duration: Grant Duration Not Mentioned
Details:
Local main streets and commercial centers create jobs, generate tax revenue, and make places for communities to come together. Suburban cities across the county rely on their unique business districts but can face challenges unlocking their full potential. The Business District Initiative offers suburban cities resources to help turn their valued town centers into vibrant destinations.
Cities are in the best position to design and implement strategies that support their community’s priority business districts. BDI program priorities are to:
- Promote compact, walkable environments
- Create a vibrant sense of place
- Highlight local community assets, including those that reflect the diverse values, culture, and heritage of the people who live and work there
- Support economic vitality, job creation, and equitable access to economic opportunity
- Build connections to the locally-owned, independent small business ecosystem.
Types of Projects
- Business recruitment strategies
- District-wide marketing
- Branding or wayfinding
- Technical assistance across business district
- Financial or legal services
- Streetscape and facade improvements
- Feasibility or predevelopment planning for business incubators.
Funding Information
- Total of $200,000 is typically available.
- Maximum award amount is $50,000.
Eligible Uses of Funds
The Business District Initiative focuses on supporting vibrant business districts or nodes that are, or are trying to have an easily recognized identity, encourage walkability and connections between places within and near the district or node, have public spaces that make people feel welcome, and reflect the communities that they serve. While some business districts have developed over time to reflect most or all these elements, many districts, nodes, or business clusters are at different stages of achieving these characteristics. BDI funds projects that advance these goals. BDI seeks to fund interventions that advance the above elements. In general, eligible uses include, but are not limited to:
- Attracting New Businesses: Initiatives focused on recruiting new locally-owned businesses to the district including comprehensive district-wide marketing, branding, and promotion efforts.
- Placemaking Strategies: Design and implementation of strategies to enhance community identity that enhance the area’s sense of place.
- Public Realm Enhancements: Improvements to public spaces to encourage open and accessible use and enhance walkability, such as street furniture, wayfinding signage, and other fixtures that enhance the area’s sense of place.
- Technical Assistance for Business Districts: Support services for establishing special service districts or business associations, including financial, legal, tax-related services, and merchandising assistance.
- Small-Business Incubators: Establishment of incubators to support the growth and development of small businesses.
- Additional Projects: Other initiatives aligned with BDI objectives, subject to prior approval from Hennepin County staff.
Eligible Locations
- Suburban Hennepin County business districts, main streets, and cultural corridors with high concentrations of locally-owned, neighborhood-focused retail, office, restaurant and/or entertainment uses that offer a variety of goods and services in a walkable or aspiring-to-be walkable environment
- Eligible locations may be a formally established business district, such as a traditional downtown, or business nodes and informal districts or business clusters that have been identified by the City as priority areas
- Proposals must include a minimum of four distinct buildings and a minimum of four distinct businesses. The scope of the project should ensure a direct or indirect impact on a majority of businesses within the area. The projects must benefit the district as a whole.
Eligibility Criteria
Suburban municipalities, housing and redevelopment authorities, economic development authorities, or port authorities.
For more information, visit Hennepin County.
