VOLUME 1, NUMBER 4
RECONNECTING DOWNTOWN POST-SANDY
NOV. 28 - DEC. 5, 2012
Mayor announces new grant program for small businesses BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER
Photos by Terese Loeb Kreuzer
Irina Kurdevanidze outside her restaurant, Acqua, at 21 Peck Slip.
Already up to their necks in debt, many of New York City’s small retailers and restaurateurs whose businesses were wrecked by Superstorm Sandy have been pleading for grants to help them reopen. On Saturday, Nov. 24, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City and the Partnership for New York City are allocating $5.5 million dollars for a grant program to assist small businesses in all five boroughs. The Mayor’s Fund, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that facilitates public-private partnerships throughout New York City, is contributing $5 million to the grant program, with the Partnership for New York City contributing the remainder. The Partnership is also a nonprofit organization whose 200 members are the C.E.O.s of New York City’s largest corporate, investment and entrepreneurial firms. The Partnership’s mission is to enlist the business community in efforts to advance the economy of New York City. The Partnership’s donation of $500,000 to the new grant program has been specifically earmarked for businesses in Lower Manhattan. They must be located south of Canal Street and have fewer than 100 employees. The maximum grant under the program for Sandy-afflicted small businesses will be $10,000.
SBA administrator Mills gets a Seaport earful BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER A constellation of City, State and federal elected officials gathered on Nov. 20 at Marco Pasanella’s South Street wine shop to welcome Karen Mills, the administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration, prior to showing her what Sandy did to the South Street Seaport. Pasanella’s store was one of the few places in the neighborhood where such a gathering could have been
held. Most Seaport stores are empty and boarded up. Pasanella managed to reopen because, as he said, his building is “primitive” without an elevator or a basement where fancier buildings kept their boilers and other equipment that Sandy smashed. Borough of Manhattan President Scott Stringer, who led off the remarks that preceded the tour, said he had recently spoken to President Barack Obama about some of the concerns of Lower Manhattan. “I men-
tioned some of the devastation I had seen at the Seaport and talked about all the small business owners whose lives are truly on the line,” Stringer said. “He said, ‘I’m going to bring resources and help to the Seaport.’” U.S. Representative Jerrold Nadler, who has been banging the drums in Washington, D.C. for the Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn Sandy relief efforts, confirmed the mesContinued on page 7
To be eligible, a business must have been displaced or closed by Superstorm Sandy for at least three weeks and must have applied for a low-interest loan through the City’s Emergency Loan Fund. This loan fund was launched with $10 million contributed by the City and by Goldman Sachs immediately after the storm retreated. An additional $5 million has just been committed to this loan fund by a consortium of New York financial institutions through the New York Bankers Association. The money is earmarked for small businesses that were damaged by flooding or power outages and is to be used for such expenses as working capital, repairs and equipment replacement. The loans are interest-free for six months and then carry an interest rate of 1 percent for up to 24 months. The grant to any one business will be no more than that business receives in loans, meaning that in order to receive the maximum grant of $10,000, a business must also have at least $10,000 in loans. The new grant program is designed to supplement loans, not to replace them completely. It will be administered by the New York Business Development Corporation and was developed in collaboration with the City’s Economic Development Corporation and the Department of Small Business Services (SBS). Continued on page 6
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