Over $17M in Private Capital towards Downtown Brownsville Revitalization

THURSDAY, September 2nd, 2021 • Brownsville, Texas 

The Board of Directors for the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC) approved the recommendations to fund five applicants in the first round of the Business Improvement and Growth (“BIG”) Program 2.0 applications. BIG 2.0 provides financial support to commercial property owners, eligible businesses and developers to improve existing buildings for expansion and site activation. By enhancing the exterior and interior of the buildings, properties increase in value, maintain their marketability, and demonstrate market confidence in order to revitalize downtown.

“The effectiveness of our program comes from the constant feedback and comments made by those who are invested or interested in the revitalization of Brownsville’s historic downtown,” said Cori Pena, Director of Community Development for the BCIC. “We are proud to offer assistance to our downtown property owners and business tenants in the efforts in activating their sites to bring new businesses, creating more job opportunities and expand existing businesses in the heart of downtown Brownsville.”

The BIG 2.0 grant is an expansion of the original BIG Grants program BCIC launched  in 2019, with a generous donation from the Musk Foundation to boost and accelerate Brownsville’s downtown revitalization efforts. The original BIG program has fostered over $3,000,000 in private investment towards businesses and properties downtown with only $450,000 leveraged from BCIC.  This latest round of assistance from the BIG 2.0 program totals $702,000 of grant funding with private capital investments totaling $14,120,909 in new downtown projects. The result of the program now reflects a total of $17,278,614 of private investment attracted to Downtown Brownsville to promote economic development as of August 2021.