New York is a city of neighborhoods, each with its own shopping street or retail center. The health of these centers and the stability of the neighborhoods that surround them are fundamentally intertwined. While many of the City’s neighborhood programs focus on housing and social services, Avenue NYC targets the economic base of the neighborhood – the local shopping street.  Avenue NYC combines public and private resources to foster an environment where local businesses succeed and everyone enjoys a superior quality of life.

In FY2010, SBS is funding non-profit economic development organizations to carry out one or more initiatives under Avenue NYC's eight project categories:

• Business Attraction
• Business Improvement District (BID) Formation/Expansion
• Facade Improvement Management Program
• Merchant Organizing
• Neighborhood Economic Development Planning
• Placemaking
• Special Commercial Revitalization Initiatives
• Website Development

What is the Evaluation Criteria?

How Do I Apply?

Am I Eligible to Apply?

Avenue NYC provides funding for non-profit economic development organizations (local development corporations, merchants associations and other organizations) throughout the five boroughs to carry out commercial revitalization activities in the districts they serve. 

Applicants must be:

• Nonprofit economic development organizations operating in any of the five boroughs of New York City;
• Incorporated as a nonprofit in New York State;
• Compliant with annual State and Federal filing requirements that are pertinent for their type of organization, including New York State Charities Bureau filings.

Proposed commercial revitalization projects must:

• Operate within defined geographic boundaries;
• Target commercial corridors as a whole and cannot provide individual business assistance, such as one-on-one business plan development assistance;
• Consider the needs of small- and medium-sized businesses operating in the geographic area.

Income Eligibility Criteria:

Organizations applying for projects other than BID Formation/Expansion and Neighborhood Economic Development Planning must target areas that are designated by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to be low- or moderate-income neighborhoods.  Designation prescribes that at least 51% of the residents in the census tracts included in the commercial area must be low- and moderate-income persons living in households with incomes below 80% of the median household income ($47,100 for a 4-person household in 2000).  To determine your census tract, visit the New York City Census FactFinder:  http://gis.nyc.gov/dcp/pa/address.jsp

To learn more about Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) eligibility and to view the City’s census tracts that are CDBG eligible, visit the Department of City Planning’s (DCP online Census Report: http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/resource/censustractreport.shtml.

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What are the Evaluation Criteria?

All organizations applying for the FY2009 Avenue NYC program are evaluated on three criteria and rated on the corresponding points scale:

1. Existing organizational capacity (40 points)
2. Strength of Avenue NYC project proposal (50 points)
3. Viability of proposed Avenue NYC budget (10 points)

Details on each of these criteria are included in the Avenue NYC Proposal Guidelines.

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How Do I Apply?

The FY2010 Application Period is currently closed.  If you would like more information about the Program, please download the Avenue NYC Proposal Guidelines.