The Downtown Investment Authority is getting back to work after being put on administrative leave during the Covid-19 pandemic, and first on the agenda is revisiting a multimillion-dollar program to get retailers to come downtown.
Through a food and beverage incentive program the DIA planned to vote on in March, the agency is attempting to entice fine dining and fast casual restaurants, cafés, bakeries, craft brewers and distillers, bars, ice cream parlors and more to open downtown locations and invest in sidewalk and facade improvements that would make downtown more walkable.
The incentive program, which offers tiered forgivable loans based on the size and retail type of applicants, will be taken up by DIA's Retail Enhancement and Property Disposition Committee on Tuesday at 1 p.m. DIA is still meeting via Zoom.
DIA is intending to concentrate retail vibrancy in two corridors – the Elbow and the Laura St./Hogan St. corridor – which are located in the center of downtown, have some established retailers, could funnel pedestrians towards the Ford on Bay and the Landing and neighbor city-owned parking garages, CEO Lori Boyer explained in previous meetings.
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