City’s economic development grants help fund beautification upgrades

By Anthony King | SDUN Editor

Council President Todd Gloria joined business owners Aug. 6 to announce the completion of three outdoor improvement projects, highlighting San Diego’s Storefront Improvement Program (SIP) in the process. The building improvements were partially funded by SIP grants.

Belching Beaver North Park at 4223 30th St. and the building housing Cabais Mexi-Deli and Sailors Grave Tattoo Gallery at 3952 and 3958 Fourth Ave. respectively, benefitted from the SIP grants, which helps small businesses renovate and revitalize facades visible to customers and neighboring businesses. The program also provides design assistance.

“These investments by the City may seem minor, but they contribute to improved community character and demonstrate a meaningful way we can strengthen our local economy,” Gloria said in a newsletter.

Improvements at the Belching Beaver included new paint, roll-up windows and exterior light fixtures, as well as the preservation of a neighborhood mural. Total cost for the project was approximately $19,500, and the City SIP grant covered $5,000.

Located in Vista, Calif., Belching Beaver Brewery opened the North Park tasting room in April of this year. The 2,500-square-foot space seats approximately 100, serving a selection of their beers. All brews are produced in Vista, where the company operates a second tasting room.

In Hillcrest, business owners showed off new paint, “dimensional signage” and the construction of new trellis details, a press release stated. Improvements also included landscaping and the creation of an outdoor seating area for Cabais. Of the total $27,000 project cost, the City granted over $9,000.

Sailors Grave, which originally opened as the Tattoo Gallery over 20 years ago, was represented by manager Sean Huston. For Cabais, manager Victoria Lopez attended the short ceremony. The deli opened in Hillcrest in 2005.

Also attending the ribbon-cutting ceremony at Cabais and Sailors Grave were Hillcrest Business Association Executive Director Benjamin Nicholls, SIP manager Alissa Gabriel, Acadia Corp. President Paul Pease and the architect of the redesign, Camille Towey. Towey said working with the City on the grant process was simple.

“It went very smoothly,” she said.

Gloria thanked Towey and the businesses for participating, and said he wanted to increase awareness about about the City’s program.

“We have wonderful City staff that … are all about trying to make these businesses more powerful,” he said. “We want to keep this program going. We want to get the word out so that other folks participate.”

Gloria then said he hoped the visible improvements would help make the stores more successful, causing a ripple effect for the neighboring businesses that would potentially see an increase in business as well.

“This program is so important to improving our neighborhood,” he said.

The City’s SIP is open to small businesses with 12 or fewer employees located within city limits. National franchises, large office buildings, government-owned buildings and religious institutions are excluded from the program.

There are currently four different rebates offered through the SIP: Standard Projects, which awards one-third of the construction cost up to $5,000; Multiple Tenant Building Projects, with a maximum of $10,000 granted; Historic Projects, for half of the construction cost up to $7,500; and Inclusion of Public Art, also with a maximum of $7,500 granted.

Previous SIP awardees include Kensington Café in 2009, Adams Avenue Bookstore in 2010 and Viva Pops on Adams Avenue in 2009, among others. Business owners interested in the program are encouraged to visit sandiego.gov/economic-development/ or call Gabriel at 619-236-6460.

For more information on Cabais, call 619-299-3525. For Sailors Grave, visit sailorsgravesd.com or call 619-542-1721, and for the Belching Beaver, visit belchinbeaver.com or call 760-703-0433.