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Barbara Adler was the founding executive director of the Columbus Avenue Business Improvement District (BID) for 20 years, until 2020. She is a long-time member of Community Board 7/Manhattan, where she currently services as Co-Chair of the Parks & Environment Committee. In addition, Barbara is vice-chair of Friends of Roosevelt Park (the park surrounding the American Museum of Natural History) and is a board member of the not-for-profit, FamilyKind.
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About a year ago, Alex Bell, the Chair of Community Board 7, and I began trying to start a Business Improvement District (BID) on Upper Broadway, purely as a volunteer project, in an effort to rid Upper Broadway of some of its dirt and grime and perhaps help numerous shuttered shops to reopen. We received a fair amount of publicity for the project, and formed a Steering Committee made up of numerous shopkeepers, owners, the Broadway Mall Association, and others, and began the long process of starting a BID. Since that time, many people have asked us if the Upper Broadway BID idea is dead. The answer is no, definitely not; it’s actually very much alive.A lot has changed since we began this endeavor, and we are well into our second year of regular meetings with our Steering Committee and SBS.
One of the City’s first requirements is that a survey be distributed to all merchants in the area, and as many residents as can be reached. Responses to our questionnaire from the neighborhood have been very enthusiastic and have numbered well over 1,600 responses.
Envisioned originally as starting in the 80s and running up Broadway, due to circumstances beyond our control, we have since cut the boundaries to start at 93rd Street and go up to 110th Street. With the defined area exclusively in Council Member Shaun Abreau’s district, he has been a very enthusiastic supporter, as have the residents and merchants in that area. We are very grateful to him and all the others for their show of support. Is your street filthy? Seeing rats? Offended by overflowing litter cans and stickers and graffiti on all the street furniture? Feel the area doesn’t have enough lighting in the evenings? Feeling unsafe at night? Want to call more positive attention to your neighborhood? A BID can solve all of those problems and make you feel proud of where you live or work, as it’s what they do. Proof of that is evidenced in the 78 BIDs now up and running in the five boroughs.
There is a process that all BIDs in formation must go through, and so we meet regularly as with a group with our representative from SBS.
We have completed our survey of the area and are currently in the assessment-formula-evaluation stage to consider various options for how the tax on property owners would be calculated. We are discussing many options, including front-footage (based on the number of feet a property has on Broadway), assessed value, a small flat tax per year on residential units, and more. Although the city assesses property owners with an additional BID tax, in the majority of commercial leases between our shops and restaurants, there is a clause with a pass-along BID charge to the lessee. We are very mindful of keeping the assessment low for property owners and merchants, as we are all sadly aware that internet shopping has taken its toll on the shops lining our avenues, while making sure there is enough money to provide basic services and the improvements that BIDs bring to an area.
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Alex and I are Community Board 7/Manhattan colleagues. Having founded and run a BID for 20 years, I have a lot of experience. Alex lives in the proposed BID area (I do not) and sees, on a daily basis, the issues that exist right there. We have selected the two co-chairs of our Steering Committee and they are Kim Duncan, owner of Golden Light Visions between 95th & 96th Streets, and Chris Connor of Argo Realty.We hope that we are getting towards the finish line to declare this Upper Broadway BID effective, and when we’re there, we’ll be sure to let everyone know about it. Meanwhile, we both want to thank you for the responses we’ve received thus far for our initiative and would appreciate your thoughts, good or bad, regarding the creation of this BID. Lastly, if you are a property owner or merchant in the defined area and would like to be involved, it’s not too late. Please contact us at contact@bway.nyc and visit our website at bway.nyc.
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