Charlestown Business Association

CBA Holds Luncheon Event with The City of Boston Department of Business Development

Deputy Director of the Office of Business Development for the City of Boston, Rafael Carbonell came to speak to CBA Members at an event hosted by the Constitution Inn, April 28th, 2010. Mr. Carbonell presented an outline of the city's current programs targeted to small businesses and updated members on any new changes that might be taking place with these programs. Mr. Carbonell was also kind enough to open up the floor to questions, as many CBA expressed issues that small local businesses face.

Some of the issues businesses expressed included lack of parking for employees and customers, loans for small business, and space availability. The Department would like help deal with issues that businesses are having and have recently assigned Charlestown it's own representative. The Neighborhood Business Manager for Charlestown is Maria Di Stefano, mdistefano.dnd@cityofboston.gov 617-635-0078, and she will be helping businesses make the most use out of these programs offered by the city, along with address concerns or issues small businesses might be having.

The City of Boston Dept. of Business Development would like to promote the following initiatives to help assist Charlestown and City Businesses.

Programs include:

Small Business Assistance

Boston Small Business Resource Guide - A guide designed to help business owners navigate the process of starting, expanding, or relocating a business.

Neighborhood Restaurant Initiative – Designed to provide restaurants with a variety of targeted resources ranging from business development, to licensing and permitting assistance, to marketing and design.

ReStore Boston – Designed to assist neighborhood business and property owners with storefront improvements with professional design services, signage, security measures, and general repairs. Economic Development

Boston Buying Power – A cost-saving initiative that allows small businesses to purchase energy at a long-term fixed price through access to the deregulated energy market.

Boston Community Change – A neighborhood-based customer loyalty program that allows you to Shop Locally, Share Locally.

Boston Invests in Growth – A loan pool designed to jumpstart well-financed construction projects, create jobs, and strengthen Boston’s economy.

Partners with Nonprofits – Provides matching grants up to $25,000 to help nonprofit organizations enhance the infrastructure of facilities that serve the immediate community. Other Resources

Boston Local Development Corporation– Provides loans of up to $150,000 for existing businesses or to those relocating to the City of Boston.

Boston Industrial Development Financing Authority – Issues bonds to finance the capital needs of Boston businesses and institutions.

Boston Connnects, Inc. / Empowerment Zone – a 5.8 square mile area of Boston designated by the federal government to ensure responsible development and sustained community revitalization in areas that have experienced years chronic divestment.

The CBA would like to thank all members who participated and attended the meeting, along with The Constitution Inn and Sorelle Bakery Cafe for providing lunch. For more info about the Charlestown Business Association, www.charlestownbusiness.com

Celebrating 25 Years - The CBA announces it's theme for 2010 - Thinking Outside the Town

“The Charlestown Business Association, Celebrates 25 years of Service in 2010”

This year, the CBA invites other local business organizations to attend its events to correspond with our theme for 2010 “Thinking outside the Town”.

In it’s 25th year of service, the Charlestown Business Association will focus its meetings and events around this theme, helping businesses network and promote themselves outside of Charlestown to bring in more business and customers.

The Annual Meeting will be a networking event geared at promoting your business to other organizations and businesses outside of Charlestown. You can also find out what other businesses outside of Charlestown have to offer you that might be able to help you or your customers.

“Many businesses in Charlestown could benefit from more customers coming in from outside of town and making Charlestown more of a destination,” says Karl Hoyt, CBA Co-chair. “We want to offer a variety of programs and events this year that will help educate and offer opportunities for our businesses to do just that.”

The first event, our Annual Meeting presents an opportunity for CBA Members to meet nearby neighboring businesses, find opportunities to work together, get advice on how businesses in other parts of Boston promote themselves and promote Charlestown not only as a great tourist area to visit, but also a hip place to eat, shop and stay, a great destination in general.

This is also a great opportunity for business service professionals such as lawyers, accountants, consultants and designers to introduce themselves to other Boston professionals and establish relationships outside of Charlestown itself.

Charlestown has so much to offer, and is very conveniently located close to other parts of Boston. The CBA wants to promote this as an opportunity to expand a visitors overall Boston experience. “In Charlestown, we have some of the best Spas, Restaurants, and Retail, just as other parts of Boston do. We feel these are underused and want tourists and visitors to expand their experience outside of just visiting the Constitution Museum, Bunker Hill Monument or Old Ironsides. We want them to come and do all of that, but also have dinner, a spa day, or just a good time in this beautiful, scenic, and historic part of Boston that is just a bit quieter, but just as much fun as other parts.”

This year’s meetings focused on “Thinking outside the town” theme, include a Pub Crawl around town for St. Paddy’s that other business associations will be invited to join, a luncheon with someone from the city of Boston that will explain programs that are setup to helps small businesses in Boston, speakers from local successful businesses that will give their insights into how you can grow your businesses to obtain customers outside of Charlestown, and a meeting that educate members about creating business partnerships and online promotion. Dates for these meetings will be announced shortly and will continue over the next year.