When it comes to doing business in downtown White Plains, we desire for our entrepreneurs to consider us “in their corner”. We help our businesses through a variety of ways. These include, but aren’t limited to:

Serving as a Liaison Between Business/Property Owners and Local Government 

As a public private partnership, we are uniquely positioned to create and foster dialogue between our vibrant business community and our many public service agencies. We help our local City agencies distribute critical information to our business community (such as updated regulations or funding opportunities) through our e-newsletter, website and personal calls, and at the same time, feed “on-the-ground” information back up to our local elected officials and City agencies so that they are more aware of the current challenges, needs and/or opportunities our business community may be facing.

Notifying Businesses of Local Opportunities or Alerts

Using mechanisms such as our BID Business Blast, general e-newsletter, social media and personal visits/relationships, we ensure our business community is aware of beneficial and time/resource-limited opportunities. For example, our organization played an instrumental role in spreading awareness of Covid-19 Recovery grants during the pandemic (we also distributed PPE to our business community as well). When the City of White Plains was awarded the State Downtown Revitalization Initiative Grant (DRI Grant), our organization orchestrated an information session for our stakeholders so that they could learn about funding opportunities for their business or property and distributed numerous flyers, e-blasts and personal emails with detailed information about the grant opportunity, encouraging them to apply and connecting them with DRI consultants and state officials as needed.

Our periodic BID Business Blast sends out street closure alerts and other pertinent business news to any business or property owner that signs up on an as-needed basis.

Retail Development and Support

In 2015, the WPBID completed a Downtown Retail Market Study. The study provides a detailed assessment of the supply of and demand for retail in downtown White Plains. Since then, we have also provided and assembled helpful business and property owner stakeholder feedback for subsequent studies addressing the retail market and planning activities affecting the commercial corridor, including but limited to the City’s most recent Comprehensive Plan.

We frequently help property owners compile a “case” for doing business downtown, providing helpful data, images and anecdotes illustrating the many reasons why White Plains is a great place to run a business and work. And we are often one of the first called by local businesses looking to start or expand to our downtown community, wishing to learn more about leasing opportunities or market data.

Orienting & Introducing Businesses

When new businesses join our downtown, we frequently serve as their initial welcome wagon, dropping off a packet filled with helpful information about the neighborhood and local business rules and regulations. We often help new businesses in our BID coordinate their ribbon cutting, including invites to local elected officials and community stakeholders and press outreach.

We also stitch together our business community, making introductions between business owners that could benefit from working together. We also present our annual networking event, the White Plains BID Annual Meeting: an opportunity allowing businesses and property owners to mingle, meet their elected officials, and receive the latest news regarding downtown.