Small businesses and locally-owned shops are the lifeblood of our city.

Unfortunately, almost all have been adversely impacted by COVID-19. To help businesses better cope with the changes the pandemic has imposed upon them, the Downtown Alliance is providing up to 25 small businesses the opportunity for one-on-one, technical-assistance consultations with Streetsense, a retail and urban-design consultant. The goal of these consultations is to assess operations and surface opportunities to better prepare businesses for the ongoing crisis. Streetsense has decades of first-hand operations experience across a variety of disciplines and industries, including research and analysis, hospitality, branding, and marketing and interior design.

Consultations will provide the following:

• Individual 45- to 60-minute work sessions with retail or restaurant owners with two members of the Streetsense Pandemic Response Team.

• A documented strategic guide for “pandemic readiness” for each business, delivered to the business owners, and to the Downtown Alliance.

• Participating businesses will receive links to pandemic signage templates and the capital planning tool (for restaurants and bars only) following the completion of each session.

Pexels Artem Beliaikin

To be eligible, businesses must have gross annual revenues of less than $3 million and employ fewer than 30 full-time-equivalent employees and occupy a ground-level storefront in the Lower Manhattan Business Improvement District. If selected, businesses will be required to complete a self-assessment questionnaire to share with Streetsense providing relevant information about their business and describing the challenges they face as the city reopens.

To be eligible for a consultation, businesses must meet the following requirements and provide appropriate documentation:

• Be located on the ground floor within the boundaries of the Lower Manhattan Business Improvement District.

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

• Open by October 1, 2020.

• Employs fewer than 30 full-time-equivalent employees as of March 1, 2020.

• Gross annual revenues of less than $3 million.

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

Applications will be reviewed and consultations will be granted on a first-come, first-served basis beginning August 10, 2020, at 9 am ET.

The application period will close when the available consultations have been exhausted. Consultations will take place between August and October 2020.

If you do not qualify for this program, please see our informational guide on COVID-19 relief programs available to businesses.