QUESTION
Which business improvement districts (BIDs) exist in Queens and what efforts are being made to revitalize certain areas?
0:23:40
·
3 min
Council Member Vickie Paladino inquires about the existing BIDs in Queens and discusses potential revitalization strategies with Deputy Commissioner Calvin T. Brown.
- Deputy Commissioner Brown names several BIDs within Queens, including the 160th Street BID, Jamaica Center, and Bayside Village.
- Paladino emphasizes the need for revitalization in her district, particularly regarding College Point and Bell Boulevard, and considers transforming merchants associations into BIDs.
- A town hall meeting is proposed to engage store owners in the district about the benefits of becoming a BID.
- Paladino and Brown plan to discuss the wide range of services that the Department of Small Business Services provides which can support merchant and small business advancement.
Vickie Paladino
0:23:40
However, When it comes to my district 19, you mentioned there's 11 bids in Queens.
0:23:47
Can you name the areas?
0:23:48
I know There's several.
0:23:50
But can you name the 11 for me, please?
Calvin T. Brown
0:23:58
So in your district, we have the bayside village bed.
0:24:04
Right.
0:24:06
And we've been funding, you know, merchant organized and includes college point as one of them that's received the merchant organized in grant.
0:24:15
For the initial stages to sort of correlate those stakeholders.
0:24:19
And in Queens, in general, we have 160 the street bid, the 180th Street bid, 82nd Street Partnership, Bayside Village, as I mentioned, Downtown Flushing, Gateway JFK, Jamaica Center, and Long Island City Partnership.
0:24:38
Myrtle Avenue, Queens, and Snyder.
Vickie Paladino
0:24:40
The reason why I'm asking is because my community which goes from college points, a little neck dudleston.
0:24:48
Mhmm.
0:24:48
And we got flushing no, flushing in between.
0:24:51
And the only bid that really seems to be working out a bit is the bayside bid.
0:24:58
And I just had them in my office this week.
0:25:01
So my I wanna get more people involved because we do have the White Stone merchants as so association.
0:25:09
We do have the College Point Merchants Association, and listening to you speak, and you mentioning the different services that you offer.
0:25:18
I think one of the biggest things or challenges for me was trying to talk the people into that have the merchants.
0:25:24
Associations into becoming vids.
0:25:28
We need some revitalization in college point and on the Boulevard.
0:25:33
What I'm going to ask you today is if perhaps we could chat after this meeting because I think what you need to do in my district anyway, I do a lot of town halls.
0:25:45
I bring you to the people so that this way Any questions that they may have?
0:25:51
Like, I could put together a room of, let's say, a 100 different store owners, maybe more.
0:25:57
You know, from every piece of my district, every area.
0:26:01
And I invite you to come and I give them the whole thing, what I wanna do.
0:26:06
And this way, it it sparks their interest because I don't think because I know they have to participate as stakeholders, which means they have to contribute.
0:26:15
So the bayside bid for example is Bell Boulevard.
0:26:19
Bell Boulevard is very lengthy, and it consists mostly of restaurants these days.
0:26:24
It used to be known as beer Boulevard.
0:26:27
Now it's Bell Boulevard, and it's a restaurant hub.
0:26:30
But I'd like more than four or five people to participate in the bid.
0:26:36
So I think that what they're lacking is a very strong board of directors.
0:26:41
That's for sure.
0:26:42
Knowing them now going on my 3rd year and knowing how a business needs to be run, they need to understand exactly what it is and listening to what you I have in writing and listening to you speak.
0:26:54
You seem to offer a great deal other than funding.
0:26:58
It's more about how they could keep their business going.
0:27:02
And I think that's knowledge is power.
0:27:05
So I am going to you and I will have a conversation, and I'd like to do a town hall in district 19 so that we could perhaps maybe flip some of the merchants associations into a bid and get get College Point Boulevard striving, it's really faltering.
Calvin T. Brown
0:27:25
No, definitely.
0:27:26
That would that would be great, and we can not only talk about the the full suite of services that we have in neighborhood development, but the full suite of services that SBS has in general that can help merchants and small businesses