For aspiring restaurant and retail-store owners, a two-year old economic development fund is available to help their businesses.
“It could be a start-up company or it could be an existing company that wants to expand,” said Peggy Adams, client manager at the Greater Syracuse Business Development Corporation. It is a non-profit agency that provides funding for small businesses in Syracuse. Some of these funds come from federal as well as private programs.
Restaurants and retailers get help through the Connective Corridor Hospitality and Enterprise Fund, or CCHEF. It provides up to a$75,000 loan for these businesses, according to the development corporation’s website. The money comes from fees the development corporation earns from processing loan programs, Adams said. This money is put into funds, like CCHEF, that “meet and address the needs that we think our community has,” Adams said.
In 2010, growth among restaurants in downtown Syracuse drew the interest of the Greater Syracuse Business Development Corporation, Adams said. The corporation wanted to be able to support the growth, Adams said, and knew banks would be reluctant to lend money to restaurants and retail stores.
One of the more successful businesses to receive the CCHEF fund, Adams said, is Byblos Mediterranean Café. The restaurant opened in April of 2011 on 223 North Clinton St., becoming the first Lebanese café in downtown Syracuse.
The cafe got a $75,000 Connective Corridor Hospitality Enterprise Fund loan from the business development corporation, according to the group’s website. Of that money, about $30,000 came through the Downtown Committee of Syracuse from a tax-supported economic development fund called the New York Main Street program.
Restaurants like Byblos are leading a local food movement in Syracuse that David Holder, president of the Syracuse Convention and Visitors Bureau, said is becoming a staple of tourist attraction in Syracuse. “I think an aspect of a unique local or regional restaurant definitely adds to the desirability of that destination,” Holder said.
Very few economic development funds focus on the hospitality business, Holder said. “Most economic development initiatives are not designed around how we encourage more restaurants and retail stores and,” he said.
Restaurants are then forced to go do more to prove to lender they are worth the investment, Holder said. But, he said, the Connective Corridor Hospitality Enterprise fund will change that, as long as owners have a really good business plan.
“When we start seeing ‘Man vs. Food’ and ‘Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives’ take an interest in Syracuse,” Holder said, “all of a sudden we have visitors who are looking for that same experience.”
(Tyler Greenawalt is a junior with dual majors in newspaper and online journalism and political science.)
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