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The Office of Business Development provides quality services and resources to entrepreneurs, business owners, and neighborhood business districts to help businesses expand, create jobs and play a vital role in local communities and the City's economy.

The Office helps business owners identify and coordinate a full range of business services, including help with business plans, marketing, and permitting, referrals to private and public sources of capital, design services, and commercial real estate development finance.


ReStore Boston is a city wide program that provides grants and loans up to $7,000 per storefront to help neighborhood business and property owners complete storefront renovation projects. In addition to funding, ReStore Boston provides professional architectural design services at no cost to the business to ensure improvements are well planned and of the highest quality.
Partners with Nonprofits provides matching grants up to $25,000 to help nonprofit organizations enhance the infrastructure of facilities that serve the immediate community. Awards are made annually based upon a competitive Request-for-Proposal process.

Affiliated Programs Boston Local Development Corporation (BLDC)
The BLDC provides loans between $15,000 and $150,000 for businesses in, or relocating to, the City of Boston, with an emphasis on the Enhanced Enterprise Community and Boston Main Streets neighborhoods. These loans can be used to buy new business property, purchase equipment, enlarge an existing plant, or to make leasehold improvements.

Boston Industrial Development Financing Authority (BIDFA)
The BIDFA issues bonds to finance the capital needs of Boston's businesses and institutions. Bonds may be used to finance construction, capital expenses and working capital needs resulting from expansion. There are a variety of taxable and tax-exempt bonds available. The minimum is generally $750,000.

InnerCity Entrepreneurs (ICE) Program
The City of Boston, through its Office of Business Development, has played a significant role in nurturing and expanding Boston University?s Inner City Entrepreneurs (ICE) Program. ICE strives to develop existing neighborhood business owners interested in growth into community leaders by creating better ties between the small business owners and the larger business world. Focus is placed on promoting wealth generation, job creation, as well as capacity and community building. ICE offers business education, networking and research in order to facilitate access to new markets, capital, and knowledge. The ICE program complements the mission of the City?s Office of Business Development by providing a structured program to serve existing neighborhood small business owners who wish to grow their business through market expansion and connect to a broader network of both peers and corporate leaders. During the past two years, twenty-five Boston business owners have participated in the ICE program and the Office of Business Development has provided a total of $50,000 in financial support.
ICE is now accepting applications for their 2007 class.
Commercial Real Estate and Business Development Finance
This program provides loans through the US. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) and Section 108/Economic Development loan program. Funding covers the gap between the financing needed to fund economic development projects and the amount that conventional lenders can provide. On average, projects must create or retain at least one full-time job for every $35,000 borrowed, unless located in the empowerment zone when the total is $50,000.

Business Technical Assistance
The Office of Business Development provides technical assistance to businesses that demonstrate the need for services. Technical assistance can include financial management, bookkeeping, inventory management and control, marketing, and design assistance.

Design Services staff work in partnership with local architectural firms to help business owners, property owners, and real estate developers create attractive, well-designed storefronts and retail spaces. The Office also provides pre-development design assistance and construction phase assistance. Design review and facilitation services receive city funding.

Boston Connnects, Inc. / Empowerment Zone
The Empowerment Zone (EZ) includez 5.8 square miles of some of the City's most vibrant and diverse neighborhoods. Its 57,640 residents, roughly 10% of the City's population, live in Chinatown, Dorchester, Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, Roxbury, the Seaport District, South Boston, and the South End.

Boston Connects, Inc. is the 501(c)(3) non-profit organization charged with implementing the long-term vision of the Strategic Plan: Providing for Economic Self-Sufficiency for Individuals, Families and Communities. Under the leadership of a 24-member governing board, BCI has been successful in linking some of the City's most needy residents and neighborhoods with new economic opportunity-through job creation, daycare, skills training, alternative education or ESL.

Boston Main Streets program provides technical assistance (organizational development, strategic planning and market development) and matching grants to 19 local Main Streets commercial districts to help establish strong, economically viable neighborhoods. A nationally-known initiative of the City of Boston and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Boston Main Streets provides merchants and residents with the tools and information necessary for their commercial districts to compete in today's marketplace.


Neighborhood Restaurant Initiative
The Office of Business Development has developed a one-year initiative that is designed to facilitate the opening of up to five, full-service restaurants in the City?s neighborhood commercial districts. The initiative will provide a menu of resources ranging from business instruction to assistance with licensing and permitting, to marketing and design, and will also include a financing option. The program will help develop strongercommercial districts and create opportunities for entrepreneurs and residents through the creation of new jobs and enhanced retail services.

The Office of Business Development is Boston's Business Resource. The Office provides businesses and neighborhood districts access to a range of financial and technical resources including:

• Office of Business Development Business Assistance Team Technical Assistance Program
• Office of Business Development Programs and Services
• Office of Business Development Site Finder Services
• Information about the financial resources available throughout the city

Information about the technical assistance resources available throughout the city

For more information on these resources, as well as publications to help your business grow, call the Office of Business Development Hotline at (617)635-0355.

For directions to our offices, view our Contact Us page.