Center City Dist. to aid businesses

Relief from a sluggish economy may be closer than expected for businesses in several of Philadelphia's low- and moderate-income shopping areas. As part of a three year initiative funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, businesses in these areas will receive aid from the Center City District – a special services district that provides extra services in return for a special assessment. The program, according to Frances Jones, the district's director of neighborhood services, will not consist of direct financial assistance to individual businesses. It will help establish special service districts, similar to the one in Center City, in high-crime, low-income areas with a general lack of appeal for potential shoppers. "Merchants within these districts will then get together and vote on a plan for [developing] specific services that are particularly needed in the area," said Nancy Goldberg, director of public relations for the Center City District. The district will guide the businesses through the organizational, technical and legal details of forming special service districts. Then they will direct the businesses in a "three pronged approach" towards upgrading the economic status of their commercial areas, Jones said. The district will encourage merchants to support programs within their service district that will enhance the public safety and improve the physical attractiveness of the immediate area, as well as engage in promotional activities to alert customers to some of the new factors that could influence them to bring their dollars to the district's businesses, Jones said. While the Pew grant will provide the necessary capital for the beginning of the program, an additional tax on participating businesses will fund its continuation. This led the district to look not only at those businesses that have what Jones called "the will and the desire" to participate in the program, but also at which areas have a "tax base there to support it," Goldberg said. If all goes as planned, the special service districts will eventually become financially independent, capable of supporting the additional services solely through the extra assessment made on their property tax, Jones said. The businesses for the district have not yet been chosen.