Jacobs: “… doubles our ability
to make loans
”
BEACON – Community Capital of New York plans on using a $1 million state grant it received last year for its “One Million for Main Street” program. It was rolled out Thursday with a presentation on the Beacon waterfront overlooking its sister city, Newburgh, across the Hudson River.
The funds from the program will be made available to provide loans for developing businesses in the seven counties.
Executive Director of Community Capital Kim Jacobs said the money, awarded through the Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council, will help provide funding options that Small Business Administration loans cannot accommodate.
“This sort of doubles our ability to make loans to small businesses,” Jacobs said. “We are the SBA lender for the region as well but, this allows to do some things the SBA funding is difficult to use for.”
The major focus of this funding is to provide loans in the areas of renewal of urban cores, agriculture and tourism. There are priorities for qualification. Jacobs said Community Capital will really be targeting businesses owned by women, minorities and veterans.
Jacobs said there has been quite a lot of interest expressed by those small businesses who could potentially qualify.
Meghan Taylor, director of the MREDC, said they are unsure of the exact impact this funding will have on the region but, from what is known, it looks promising.
“It’s hard to say right now but, based on what they’re talking about right now, the million dollars is going to leverage a $2.2 million opportunity fund and potentially, those funds could raise up to $800 million because the money is going to be a revolving loan fund at this point; so, I mean the economic benefit, depending on who’s awarded the funds or who is part of the loan, is exciting,” said Taylor.
As far as round five Consolidated Funding Applications are concerned, Taylor said with both rounds running concurrently, the MREDC has been very busy but they are expecting that round’s results by late fall.
