Macro interest for Downtown BIZ micro-grants

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This article was published 13/05/2021 (1801 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

There was a virtual stampede of applications for the Downtown Winnipeg Business Improvement Zone’s second round of $1,000 micro-grants that was quietly announced on social media Monday morning.

After 90 minutes there were already 40 applications for the 50 grants.

By Wednesday morning, there were 120.

Kate Fenske, CEO of the organization, was frantically trying to round up an additional $70,000 in addition to the $50,000 that the organization came up with to fund the grants from other programming that had to be put on the shelf.

“There’s no way I want to tell any downtown business right now that we can’t help,” she said. “That’s what I’m spending today and tomorrow doing — seeing if we can find the funds anywhere else to help.”

When the Downtown Biz offered the same grants in August, all of the 51 applicants that qualified received the grant.

The current grant program is first come first served and the only criteria is that the business just has to be located downtown, have fewer than 50 employees and show that there is a need.

Fenske believes the heightened demand is another indication of how hard it is for downtown businesses, now dealing with the third lockdown.

“The need has more than doubled since last August,” she said. “When we did the first one, the applications were open for two weeks. This time it was over-subscribed in the first 24 hours.”

Whereas a small percentage of full time workers had started filtering back to work downtown, the Mother’s Day lockdown has emptied the streets again and many downtown businesses are more vulnerable to foot traffic than would be the case in many other neighbourhoods.

Linda Jacob, the proprietor of Pilates Downtown, received a Downtown BIZ grant in August and applied again this time. (Businesses that have been recipients previously are still eligible.)

Last time, she used the $1,000 to install a sink in her second-storey studio.

She bought the business two years ago and has now been forced to shut down three times in her brief tenure.

“It has been rough but I will be here at the end of this,” she said.

One reason for that is that Pilates is a way to maintain physical and mental health which, she said, “It’s just as important these days as the concern about getting sick from the coronavirus.”

She has started offering virtual classes and figures that will continue on after the pandemic because people have become accustomed to taking classes even when they are not able to attend at the studio.

Jacob’s business is hanging in, but she said, “I think during this third round people are starting to lose hope. But we have to keep pushing, keep being hopeful, keep pushing to be able to reopen.”

Bruce Smedts, the owner of White Star Diner on Kennedy Street, also received the first grant and has applied for this one.

He’s cut hours, cut his staff completely (except for his niece who he’s trying to give a few hours a week so she can earn some money) and is paying himself about $6-to-$7 per hour.

“They might give preference to people who didn’t get the first grant and I would support that,” he said.

But if he does receive the grant it will go into the bank to help pay the rent, credit card bills “and maybe give myself a proper pay cheque.”

Fenske believes there are about 40 businesses that have closed in the 250-block business improvement zone during the 14 months of the pandemic, including the Bay, Staples in Portage Place, a few Starbucks locations and a number of locally-owned enterprises.

“We’re running out of ideas on how to help right now,” she said. “We’re trying to get as creative as we can. We’re really hoping this is the last wall we have to climb over.”

The Downtown BIZ is currently working with CentreVenture, Tourism Winnipeg and the Exchange and West End business improvement zones to work up a strategy on what the economic and social recovery should look like for the downtown.

Discussions and some polling are taking place over the course of the next several weeks and she said they hope to be able to bring a report to city council by the fall.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca