Six businesses in Bend's core area will receive funding through a City program aimed at enhancing the area. On Feb. 7, staff presented the Core Area Business Assistance Grant awards to the Bend Urban Renewal Agency for approval. The recommendation, showing how much money each business would receive, sparked questions surrounding program policy and awarding criteria.
BURA adopted the business assistance program in April 2023 to support businesses in the core area, making improvements that would enhance the customer experience, aesthetics of the area and business success.
Seven businesses in the area applied for program assistance, requesting a portion of the allocated $100,000. Members of CAAB were asked to score applications in advance of the meeting, based on criteria such as how likely the project is to generate other investments in the area, equity, demonstrated financial need and how soon investments can be made.
The final recommendation included almost full funding for two of the applicants – Colima Market and businesses at 1631 NE 2nd St – and partial funding for the remaining applicants. Other awarded businesses included Open Space Event Studios, Dogwood Cocktail Cabin, Growing Tree Children's Center, Timber Kiddies Preschool and Riverside Animal Hospital.
After seeing the final recommendations, BURA had questions about the allocation, given that the preschools and daycares were given less than every other business, other than Riverside Animal Hospital. The recommended award was $7,500 for Riverside, $3,500 for Timber Kiddies and $10,000 for Growing Tree. The four other businesses were recommended to receive awards of over $17,000.
"When we brought it to the urban renewal agency, they wanted to support the two child care operators with more funding," said Allison Platt, the core area project manager. The Agency decided to allocate the funding previously recommended to Riverside to the child care operators, meaning that Riverside will not be receiving funding at this time.
"We're trying to work with Riverside to see if there's a way that we can try to work on some of the improvements that they had applied for," said Platt.
The City plans to offer this program on an annual basis. The goal, said Platt, is that the amount of funding available for the program increases over time next year. Staff plan to run the program similarly next year but will likely reevaluate the program policy and the scoring.
"Council gave pretty clear direction at their meeting that they wanted to make sure that child care operators were elevated in scoring, which didn't quite happen in this round," said Platt. "I think we'll look at the criteria and the scoring to make sure that child care operators do score better in the future, since that is such a huge Council priority and community need."
