New York City is sending more than $8.4 million to community organizations that work with small businesses, in what the administration called one of the largest single rounds of small business grants the Department of Small Business Services has ever released.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and SBS Commissioner Kenny Minaya announced the awards Monday. The money will pay for public art, street cleaning, lighting, wayfinding signs, marketing campaigns for commercial districts and other neighborhood work, the mayor's office said. City Hall estimates the grants will reach organizations that serve more than 20,000 small businesses.
Brooklyn took the largest share, with about $2.77 million across 32 grants. The Bronx received $1.55 million across 17 grants, Manhattan about $1.53 million across 14, Queens about $1.51 million across 19 and Staten Island $550,000 across seven. Another $500,000 went to seven organizations that work citywide.
Much of the money is meant to strengthen merchant associations and business improvement districts, and in some neighborhoods to build merchant groups where none exist, amNewYork reported. Supporters of that approach argue that commercial strips with an organized business group already in place recovered faster after the COVID-19 pandemic than those without one.
Mamdani said the grants are meant to work alongside his administration's effort to cut regulatory burdens, adding that it is not enough to make it easier to open a small business, "you have to make it easier to visit one too."
The awards follow two earlier moves. Shortly after taking office in January, Mamdani signed Executive Order 11, which told seven city agencies to catalogue their penalties and fees and find ways to reduce them. Last month he announced "OPEN for Small Business," a package of more than 50 regulatory changes meant to cut paperwork for owners in every borough.
Advocacy groups welcomed those reforms while pressing for more. The Five Borough Jobs Campaign said it would keep pushing to cut small business fines and fees by half, a target Mamdani embraced during his campaign, according to amNewYork.
To mark the grant round, Minaya held a monthlong tour with stops in Harlem, Port Richmond on Staten Island, Downtown Jamaica in Queens, Lou Gehrig Plaza in the Bronx and Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. Minaya described the awards as direct investments in organizations that know their neighborhoods better than anyone else, QNS reported.
The money has already been distributed, Commercial Observer reported. The city has not said when the funded work is expected to appear on the street.