Westchester begins $1M downtown grant program

Westchester County plans to spend $1 million in a new effort to promote downtown improvement while helping small businesses. There are four grants of up to $250,000 planned in a new phase of the Westchester County Office of Economic Development”™s Business FIRST Program. Municipalities that meet the criteria can now apply for a grant.

“The Business FIRST Downtown Improvement Grant Program is part of our continued response to listening and responding to the needs of those who do business in Westchester,” County Executive George Latimer said. “It will help ensure our businesses and the local communities they help build have the support and resources to remain vibrant and innovative as we look into the future. The key part of this grant is its tailored public-private approach to support each community selected.”

Joan McDonald, the county’s director of operations and chairperson of the county’s Industrial Development Agency said, “Revitalization and growth are core components of the work that we do. This Pilot Program is an important step towards rebuilding our local economies.”

According to the county’s Director of Economic Development Bridget Gibbons, “Looking past the impact of Covid-19 on our downtowns, these are areas poised with opportunity for new growth and reinvigoration. We are pleased to offer a resource to support local municipalities as they undergo this process of revitalization.”

The county points out that communities receiving Community Development Block Grant funds directly from the federal government or those that have previously received a Downtown Revitalization Initiative grant from New York state are not eligible to participate in the county’s pilot program. Municipalities that have a downtown business improvement district also are ineligible for the grants.

Shari Rosen Ascher, who will be supervising the program through her position as the county’s director of policy and programs for small business and Chambers of Commerce said that it’s been her experience that small businesses and the county’s villages and towns already cooperate and that will help ensure business involvement in the grant program. She said that municipalities have until March 31 to apply and that the applications will be submitted to consultants for evaluation but the identities of the municipalities will be withheld from the consultants.