Jersey City became the sixth recipient of Fleet Bank’s Community Renaissance Initiative (CRI) grant in a ceremony held Thursday. The three-year, $750,000 grant will foster the expansion of existing businesses and help new ones get off the ground in the area of Bergen Hill.
“We’re known as the Gold Coast and renowned as a financial center, but we need gold communities, too,” said Mayor Glenn Cunningham at the start of the ceremony. “We need to create new jobs and promote entrepreneurship.”
Also on hand was Fleet New Jersey President Jack Collins, himself a Jersey City native. “We at Fleet have a responsibility to help the community succeed, because when the community succeeds, so do we all,” Collins told a group of approximately 100 attendees gathered in the parking lot of the future office that will administer the grant, at 348 Martin Luther King Drive.
After listing Fleet’s many community efforts, Collins said, “We do this not just because we get attention, but because it is the right thing to do.”
According to Michele Courton Brown, president of Fleet Boston Financial Foundation, Jersey City is only the second city in New Jersey to receive a Community Renaissance Initiative grant, the other being Camden. The grant is being awarded to the Jersey City Economic Development Corporation (JCEC) to support the Bergen/Lafayette Renaissance Project, in collaboration with the Jersey City Episcopal Community Development Corporation and New Jersey City University.
Over the next three years, the JCEC will receive $250,000 in three installments. The money will go to remove dilapidated buildings through demolition or renovation, aid in the creation of new businesses, and expand existing companies through new marketing plans. It will be given to local businesses in the form of loans.
“Two years ago we conceived of the CRI to take advantage of the economic growth we had at the time,” said Brown. “We know what has happened since then. The CRI is more important now than during the boom.”
New Jersey City University will be playing a major role in the grant’s utilization, and their Small Business Development Center will run the office on Martin Luther King Drive to handle the program.
Barbara O’Neal, director of the Small Business Development Center, explained that the university would help existing and new small businesses. This will be accomplished in a three-part educational program sponsored by the university.
The first section covers starting a small business, while the second and third phases will help with the creation of a business plan and a marketing plan, respectively.
“The main focus is job creation,” O’Neal said.
O’Neal went on to say New Jersey City University holds small-business programs in a different Hudson County location monthly during the year, with classes conducted in both English and Spanish. O’Neal suggested anyone interested in the program should call (201) 200-2156.
“This is not about the bank or the university,” said New Jersey City University Carlos Hernandez. “This is about bringing the right people together in a community.”