Official Site of The State of New Jersey

Have A Business Need? NJBAC Can Help.

The NJBAC is offering no-cost technical assistance, training, and problem-solving – we are here to support all of your Business Enhancement needs. Whether you have a one-off resource question, are looking for a strategic assessment of a district, or could use some quick visualized tactical inspiration to foster visible and tangible change, NJBAC can help. Contact NJBAC Assistant Director Jef Buehler to start the conversation and move towards action.

Today’s email has information on assistance we can provide, as well as about technical and financial resources that may be a fit for your community or district. Please feel free to share this information with other officials, district management stakeholders, and businesses. To see all prior Business Enhancement Connection emails, click here!

Best Practices

Videos for Understanding Parking Mandates: Looking for engaging ways to showcase the real costs of parking mandates—and why reform matters—for public and private community and district stakeholders?  Take a look at these standout videos: The High Cost of Free Parking (6 minutes; great overview); How Parking Mandates Wreck Your City (13 minutes; a deeper dive focused on parking garages); Best Practice: Fayetteville Removes Parking Minimums (15 minutes; an excellent success story); and Parking Laws Are Strangling America (31 minutes; incredibly comprehensive and a bit irreverent.)

Placemaking and Care – It’s More than Maintenance: When it comes to public space, a "culture of care" is critical to successful placemaking. This involves a shift in our thinking of how communities and districts are managed in order to bring economic growth and prosperity to more people and places. This topic is explored in Hyperlocal: Place Governance in a Fragmented World, a collection of articles curated by Project for Public Spaces (PPS). PPS Co-director Nate Storring also goes over the “secret sauce” for creating great public places in this 12 minute video of his presentation on the topic from late 2024.

Featured Grants & Support

AmeriCorps Grant Opportunities: The New Jersey Commission on National and Community Service is has released the 2025-2026 AmeriCorps NJ Formula Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), with applications due in April 2025.  See what AmeriCorps can do for your community or district: AmeriCorps 101 (What is AmeriCorps/AmeriCorps NJ?)  The Commission invites eligible applicants to submit an application to this opportunity. First-time applicants can apply only for planning grants. Operational grants are issued only to existing AmeriCorps grantees who successfully implanted the planning grant.  Updates and resources will be posted here: New Jersey Department of State - Volunteer and National Service Grant Opportunities

EDA Small Business Grants Are Still Available: There are three well-funded and non-competitive grants from the NJ Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) that focus on small businesses.  Please share this information directly with your businesses in your districts and municipalities.  If you would like NJEDA to come to speak with your businesses as a group reach out to Kathy.Guzman@njeda.gov to set up an in-person or online walkthrough of these grants:

Small Business Improvement Grant

• Open to NJ small businesses, nonprofits, and home-based businesses.
• Reimbursement grant for interior and exterior renovations, the purchase and installation of new furniture, fixtures, and equipment.  The work must be completed, and items paid for within two years from the date of application.
• Reimbursement is 50% of total cost, up to $50,000 maximum award. 
• Program details and grant application are on the NJEDA website for Improvement Grant.

Small Business Lease Grant

• Open to NJ small businesses with a new 5-year (or longer) lease of street level space, between 250 and 10,000 square feet. Amended leases may be eligible if additional space is added.
• Lease must be executed within the previous 12 months from the grant application date.
• Grant award is 20% of annual lease payment upon grant approval, and a second 20% payment of the annual lease amount after one year.
• Program details and grant application are on the NJEDA website for Lease Grant.

Small Business E-Commerce Support Program

• Open to NJ restaurants, retail, and personal care businesses that operate from a commercial location.
• Free E-Commerce and digital marketing consulting such as website development, website optimization, E-Commerce platform, online ordering, online appointment booking, and digital marketing plans. 
• This program is consultant led; business owners should reach out directly to one or more of the approved vendors to get started. There is no online application through the NJEDA.

NJBAC Can Work With All the Businesses in Your Community

We are here to support your communities’ and districts’ businesses. NJBAC offers free online chat and telephone (800-537-7397) assistance in English and Spanish to any business in NJ – any size, any location, and any type. Businesses can always download the NJBAC Small Business Manual – a one-stop tool for many business concerns – online here for english. A Spanish version of the manual is also available here for spanish. Individual businesses or organizations can order a printed English copy as well by clicking this link for english or the Spanish version by clicking this link for spanish. For bulk orders of up to 10 printed copies in any language, please contact NJBAC’s Tracy Thomas directly.

Our NJBAC team can advocate for businesses, concierge them to funding and technical solutions, help them find locations for growth or developing export markets, guide them to navigating the commercial cannabis sector, and much more. Want to set something up online or on-site for your businesses? Reach out to NJBAC Assistant Director Jef Buehler to get plugged in to all of our business success services.

NJBAC’s Business Enhancement Services is online:  Now you can refer to Business Enhancement Services directly online with just a click!  Please favorite the website – it will be expanding over time as we add new resources and tools that support municipal and district revitalization and place-based business enhancement.