Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) and other community partnerships provide critical leadership in managing and maintaining commercial districts across New York City. Their efforts help small businesses navigate bureaucracy and find success, while also connecting communities by activating and creating vibrancy on our streets, sidewalks and public spaces.

Unfortunately, many district leaders are challenged with small budgets and limited staff. This can strain their ability to take advantage of the myriad of existing opportunities to generate excitement and build support for the local economy. The stress can also leave innovative ideas on the shelf, especially when trying to balance all the uses in streets and public spaces, and deciding how to prioritize among competing district needs.

Thanks to the generous support of the NYC Department of Small Business Services (NYCSBS) and the Association for a Better New York (ABNY), RPA has partnered with Streetsense and SharedCitySharedSpace to create a series of capacity building toolkits and a set of policy recommendations.

With these resources and insights, we aim to support district leaders in their immediate challenges to streamline operations and build on their successes. Moreover, we aim to highlight longer-term strategies to financially sustain BIDs and support their efforts to innovate and invest in their district assets to create better and more equitable public realm benefits citywide.

BID Budget Assessments and Area Median Household Income

Tools and information for BIDs

Equity Toolkit

BIDs serve as important public realm stewards and business advocates in many communities throughout the city. This guide is filled with “recipes” for actionable ways a BID can work to improve equity in their district.

Branding Toolkit

A district’s brand is a powerful tool that can help a Business Improvement District (BID) attract businesses, visitors, and investors by fostering a positive image and identity for the district and the organization.

Vacant Storefront Toolkit

Vacant storefronts in a district can be thought of as blank canvases ripe for creative and dynamic solutions, and BIDs are well positioned to facilitate their transformation from potential to a vibrant reality.

DBP Albee Square Halloween credit Argenis Taveras for Downtown Brooklyn Partnership

Consumer Marketing Toolkit

Learn how BIDs can use social media, local news, and other marketing tools to promote their businesses, increase sales, retain customers, and more.

Parking and Curbside Management Toolkit

Poor parking and curb management creates a number of problems in commercial districts. The purpose of this toolkit is to provide guidance on how to best imagine and manage the curb to meet the needs of BID members.

BID Events Checklist

Events are a great way to attract and engage customers — use this short checklist to plan and execute your event successfully.

Policy Recommendations

GO LOCAL!

Nurturing Neighborhoods & Advancing Equity

The City has an extraordinary opportunity to catalyze equitable public space investment in all neighborhoods by lifting constraints and actively affirming BIDs and other place-based partners in less-resourced areas.

Authored by

Tiffany-Ann Taylor

Vice President, Transportation
Maulin Mehta

New York Director
Rachel Weinberger

Director, Research Strategy & Peter W. Herman Chair for Transportation
Lacey Cotter

Director, External Relations and Events
Kate Slevin

Executive Vice President
Nadav Bigelman

Former New York Advocacy Intern
Larisa Ortiz

Streetsense, Managing Director, Public Non Profit Solutions
Emily Morin

Streetsense, Research Analyst
Tim Tompkins

SharedCitySharedSpace, Principal