YORKTON – YBID's Business Improvement Incentive Program continues to see results.
In the Summer and Fall of 2020 the City of Yorkton, YBID, and the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce assembled a committee to review the EZIP (Enterprise Zone Improvemen Program).
EZIP was a funding opportunity for businesses to apply for help with improvements to their building. Although the program was a good idea, the actual program was quite hard to find, use and was overwhelming, resulting in only five users to the program throughout its entirety.
With much consultation and administration from the City of Yorkton the BIIP or Business Improvement Incentive Program was born.
In Jan. of 2021 the online program was initiated by the City with three parts: the Façade and Site improvement Incentive, the Business Creation and Expansion Incentive and the Vacant Building and Tax Abatement.
Online applications are easy and dealt with quickly. YBID not only consulted with its business members but had business owners and managers on the committee to help make the program easy to use, find and get results quickly.
The Façade and Site improvement Incentive is where the YBID allocated $50,000 dollars to each year for District businesses to apply for in a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 sharing of the costs. The maximum any one business can apply for is $30,000 which would mean 1/3 from the City, 1/3 from YBID and 1/3 to be paid by the business for the approved façade applications.
The online program was a huge success for 2021 and 2022. A total of 11 businesses have now received funding from the program with the most recent being Melrose Place Restaurant.
BIIP recipients said they were impressed with the program, stating it was easy to use, got results and approval quickly, response time was fast and they got to go ahead quickly.
The program requires the business to pay up front for improvements first but to know that reimbursement of the applicable funding was secured.
