Image Credit: explorenewdorp.com

City Council votes to create the City’s latest Business Improvement District on Staten Island. On April 5, 2017, the City Council voted 50-0 to approve the Department of Small Business Services’ application to create the New Dorp Business Improvement District for Staten Island’s New Dorp neighborhood. The BID will consist of properties along New Dorp Lane and adjacent commercial streets between Hylan Boulevard and Richmond Road. The proposed BID contains 146 properties and 180 businesses, most of which are small and family-owned companies. (more…)

Rendering of the new Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center. Image Credit: NYC Parks Dept.

On December 22, 2022, the Parks Department and the Department of Design and Construction revealed the schematic design for the new Shirley Chisholm Recreation Center in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. The new center will be located in Nostrand Playground on Nostrand Avenue between Foster Avenue and Farragut Place.  (more…)

Rendering of the future Mary Cali Dalton Recreation Center. Image Credit: Parks Dept.

The project will be the first “design-build” project for the Parks Department. On November 23, 2022, the Department of Parks and Recreation and the Department of Design and Construction announced the design for the Mary Cali Dalton Recreation Center in Tompkinsville, Staten Island. The recreation center will be located adjacent to the Lyons Pools and across from the site of the former Cromwell Center, the area’s previous recreation center which closed after a structural collapse in 2010. The former center was demolished in 2013. (more…)

Council Member Julie Menin, Chair of the Committee on Small Business, speaks at the committee hearing on June 9th. Image Credit: City Council

The New York City Council Committee on Small Business held a public hearing on a proposed digital portal to centralize the information and paperwork necessary to open and run a small business. On June 9, 2022,  the New York City Council’s Committee on Small Business held a public hearing on a proposed bill that would require the City to create and maintain the, “One-Stop Shop NYC Business Portal.” The Portal would be an on-line hub for information and functionality related to opening and running a small business. It is meant to make the process more efficient by allowing business owners to deal with all the necessary city agencies in a single, easily-accessible space. (more…)

The boundary lines of the proposed Greater JFK IBID. Image credit: Urbanomics/BFJ Planning

The proposed IBID’s geographic boundaries do not include the JFK airport itself, which ensures it would serve the needs of the surrounding off-airport community. On April 13, 2016, the City Planning Commission held a public hearing on the New York City Department of Small Business Services’ application to create the Greater JFK Industrial Business Improvement District, or IBID, located in Springfield Gardens, Queens. Though the proposed IBID would be the largest IBID in the City, it purposefully does not include within its boundaries the John F. Kennedy International Airport itself, which would ensure the needs of the off-airport community at-large remain the focus of the IBID’s efforts.

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