Downtown Alliance To Award $800,000 In Cash Grants To Essential Small Businesses

To help businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Alliance for Downtown New York is awarding $800,000 in immediate cash grants to small businesses providing essential services to the Lower Manhattan community.

With support from Brookfield Properties, Silverstein Properties and The Howard Hughes Corporation, the Downtown Alliance’s Small Business Rental Assistance Grant program will provide individual grants of $10,000 to help qualifying businesses pay rent. 

“There is not one storefront business in New York City that has been spared by COVID-19,” Downtown Alliance President Jessica Lappin said. “We are stepping up to do what we can to help our stores keep their lights on.”

Businesses can apply starting Friday, May 1 at 9a ET here.

To apply, businesses must meet the following requirements:

—Be open and provide an “essential” service as defined by Governor Cuomo 

—Be located on the ground floor within the Business Improvement District’s boundaries

—Be an independent business with five or fewer locations in New York City

—Have fewer than 20 employees as of March 1, 2020

—Have a gross annual revenue below $1.5 million

—Have a lease at their current location through December 31, 2020

Applicants should also be prepared to provide their 2019 4th Quarter 941, relevant lease agreement pages and the main pages from the business’s most recently filed IRS business tax return, showing its annual gross revenues.  

Lappin added: “We are so grateful to Brookfield Properties, Silverstein Properties and the Howard Hughes Corporation for their generosity in supporting this program. Their commitment to the neighborhood and to helping neighbors in crisis is a part of why Lower Manhattan will come back from this challenge and once more show its dynamic, thriving energy.”