Officials Work To Revitalize Lower East Side Businesses
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Fresh development may soon be coming to Manhattan's Lower East Side thanks to new efforts by the LES Business Improvement District and the city's Department of Small Business Services. NY1's Rebecca Spitz filed the following report.Michael Little could be the face of a new Orchard Street.
Open only two months, his business is thriving and he says it's just the beginning.
"I think it's a really exciting time to be here but also to be a part of that developing wave of a yet untapped neighborhood in New York," says Little.
Many who work in the area say Orchard Street has rested on its musty origins as the bargain basement for shoppers from all over the city and beyond, but they say it's time for the neighborhood to modernize.
"We have a great eclectic mix of old school retailers as well as newer designer boutiques, and our mission is to make sure more people in the city and around the region know about that,” says Bob Zuckerman, executive director of the Lower East Side Business Improvement District.
Zuckerman says he's working to create a dialogue between the BID and local merchants to see how each can help the other.
It's a skill he says he learned as part of the Neighborhood Leadership program's inaugural class.
That program is run by Coro, a non-profit leadership training program developed in partnership with the city's Department of Small Business Services.
"This is a program for people who are leading business improvement districts, who are working in nonprofit organizations working on commercial revitalization and economic change in their neighborhoods,” says Scott Millstein, executive director of Coro.
"Our staff is on a daily basis in contact with the BIDs, with the local development corporation, with people who are interested in commercial revitalization," says Elizabeth De Leon, SBS deputy commissioner.
Even established merchants see the upside of an uptick in business
"I see it as an area that's going to continue to grow and change in a positive way for retail business,” says business owner Lesley Heller.
The neighborhood leadership program will start accepting applications for its upcoming class next week, and the final day for submissions is December 9.