What does CNBDU do?

CNBDU provides several services to the City of Cincinnati including the following:

  • Mentoring and Technical Assistance to Neighborhood Business districts.
  • Comprehensive, peer review of formal applications for funding by Neighborhood Business Districts and recommendation for funding of projects by the City of Cincinnati in Neighborhood Business Districts.
  • Advice to and recommended coordination among City Departments to better serve Neighborhood Business Districts and to better coordinate the activities within the business districts with the City's activities.

Through its mentoring and technical assistance effort, CNBDU brings individuals who have successfully facilitated the completion of a Neighborhood Business District project together with those that wish to improve their district. These individuals provide assistance with planning projects and knowledge of the CNBDU process and evaluation criteria for projects.

CNBDU's comprehensive, peer reviewed process for evaluating Neighborhood Business District funding requests is perhaps the heart of its activities and the greatest value provided to the City. This process begins with established criteria for evaluating projects and applies the experience of those that have completed similar projects to the evaluation.

CNBDU members know costs, likelihood of success, market forces, impacts of infrastructure on projects, and other aspects of neighborhood business district development that the City could not gain through any other means. As a result of the peer-reviewed process, only those projects that are most likely to succeed and that provide the greatest benefit to the Neighborhood Business district as a whole and to the City are recommended for funding.

Through its advice and recommendations to the City, CNBDU is able to improve services to business districts (street cleaning, trash receptacles and trash collection, coordinated street repair, etc.) while reducing redundancies among City departments and added costs for businesses.

Types of projects that CNBDU has funded include the following:

CIP FundedCDBG Funded
Streetscapes
Lighting
Parking lots and Garages
Gateways
Signage
Facades
Awnings and Signs
Renovations
Site preparation for commercial development