Deadline: Ongoing Opportunity
The Winnipeg’s Downtown Recovery Strategy is pleased to announce its Building Business Grant Program to support businesses and begins to address these issues, with the following objectives:
- Create and maintain jobs in downtown Winnipeg.
- Create and fill visually appealing storefronts, offices, and workspaces, making downtown an attractive destination for individuals and businesses.
- Support existing businesses and attract new businesses committed to growing our downtown economy.
- Increase the resilience of downtown businesses by helping them build their skills and capacity.
- Make downtown safer and more vibrant by increasing the number of people visiting and working here.
This program has been designed with supports for all types of downtown businesses. Whether your business is new to downtown or has been here for many years, this grant is here to help!
Action Areas
- Revitalizing Places
- Prioritize tree planting, sidewalk repair, lighting, and eliminating accessibility barriers on key pedestrian corridors.
- Invest in high impact infrastructure projects to improve destinations and better connect and sustain downtown’s distinct districts, while encouraging surrounding economic investment.
- Design and implement a new accessible and inclusive wayfinding strategy for downtown.
- Host community clean-up events and develop a rapid-response public space cleanliness strategy or service.
- Energizing Spaces
- Create a ‘Downtown Events Fund’ to help existing festivals adapt to hosting large gatherings that ensure public safety and respond to the lasting effects of the pandemic. Initiatives that raise downtown business revenue, advance cultural understanding and reconciliation, and increase winter visitation will be the focus of this fund.
- Establish a ‘Pop-Up Spaces Program’, that includes moveable and re-useable capital infrastructure, to activate four-season, under-utilized spaces throughout the downtown, creating new reasons to visit and experience downtown.
- Launch a multi-faceted ‘Spend Downtown’ marketing campaign, providing engaging cross-promotional opportunities to support existing retail, hospitality, and arts and cultural businesses.
- Supporting People
- Expand community outreach presence on the streets. Collaborate with existing community partners to develop and secure long-term sustainable funding for low-barrier 24-hour safe spaces and prioritize supporting Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQ+ people.
- Adopt a harm reduction approach and provide safe amenities such as additional public washrooms and drinking water locations throughout the downtown.
- Establish connections between downtown businesses and community-based groups that serve Winnipeggers facing poverty to reduce stigma, deepen understanding, and enhance collaboration.
- Living Downtown
- Initiate 1,500 new mixed-income downtown housing units over the next three years using tax increment financing.
- Augment affordable housing initiatives to overcome hurdles to developing low-barrier, transitional, and social housing, such as the need for downtown land or building acquisition.
- Develop and align a marketing plan with downtown’s educational institutions to match students with new downtown living options.
- Advocate for and support efforts to restart and increase international immigration to Winnipeg.
- Building Business
- Develop a campaign to support and encourage companies to bring workers back downtown and to attract new companies to locate downtown, including methods for safe return and promotion of the unique amenities and offerings in the downtown.
- Establish a robust ground floor incubation strategy to mentor and match emerging businesses with empty downtown storefront locations.
- Establish a Business Improvement Grant for existing businesses to make interior and exterior improvements and for development to support long term business strategy and growth.
- Replenish CentreVenture’s gap financing fund in support of challenging revitalization projects, including surface parking lot redevelopment.
Program Streams
This program includes three streams which aim to provide something for both new and existing downtown businesses that are committed to downtown as a part of their long-term plans.
- Grow the ground floor
- Boost your bottom line
- Elevate your workspace
Funding Information
- Grow the ground floor: Grants of up to $50,000 for outdoor storefronts or $30,000 for indoor storefronts
- Boost your bottom line: Grants of up to $30,000
- Elevate your workspace: Grants of up to $30,000
Eligibility Criteria
- Grow the ground floor
- A business that is ready to open a new downtown storefront
- An existing business that wants to expand a downtown storefront
- Outdoor storefront: facing the sidewalk and street
- Indoor storefront: facing into the interior of a building, like the lobby of a building or in a shopping mall
- Boost your bottom line
- An existing business looking to renovate their downtown storefront, office, or workspace
- An existing downtown business looking for business development services
- Elevate your workspace
- Business that is ready to open a new downtown office or workspace
- An existing business looking to expand a downtown office or workspace
- The applicant’s place of business must be within the boundaries of the City of Winnipeg’s Downtown Zoning By-law. If a business also operates outside these boundaries, only the location(s)/operation(s) within the boundaries qualify for grant funding.
- The business must have a valid and active Business Number and be in good standing with the Manitoba Companies Office or Corporations Canada.
- The business must not be in arrears for any provincial, federal, property or business taxes, or BIZ levy (note: this does not include businesses that have received authorization to defer tax remittances).
- The business must not have any ongoing claims or outstanding judgements against it.
- The business must not be prepared for sale, closure, or dissolution at any point prior to receipt of grant funding. This includes, but is not limited to:
- Announcing a permanent closure to their employees or customers
- Holding a closing-out sale
- Listing the business for sale
For more information, visit https://www.downtownrecovery.ca/