For almost a year, Downtown Indiana, Incorporated has been working on a new Business Improvement District plan, and the new “BID” takes an important step tonight with a meeting of downtown businesses and leaders at the First Commonwealth Bank Training Rooms at 654 Philadelphia Street.
By law, a BID has a term of five years. Indiana’s BID went into effect on August 2nd, 2011 and expired last year. Downtown Indiana had hoped to be able to reauthorize the BID immediately, but it’s taken some time as they have worked to strengthen it and address some concerns with the first BID. In order for a BID to take effect, sixty percent of the businesses within it must approve, making it mandatory for all businesses, and the borough would have to sign on to a cooperative agreement.
Now, a new BID draft is available at www.downtownindiana.org, and Downtown Indiana’s David Janusek encourages business owners to study it and bring their questions tonight. The new BID features new boundaries, among other changes. Janusek says they’ve done their homework, not only on the expired Indiana BID, but on the way BIDs work in other communities. “We’ve looked at other BIDs. We’ve looked at what has worked and what hasn’t worked here in the past in downtown Indiana. We’ve looked throughout the state. So I think we’ve got a pretty good package, if you will, that would be very amiable for the borough, for the downtown, and most importantly for the retailers and the property owners.”
Bill Fontana from The Pennsylvania Downtown Center will be on hand tonight. The meeting is from 5 to 7 PM.
