LADWP Approves First of its Kind Business Retention Program

The pilot program, which will be tested for one year and then refined, will benefit the Lankershim/Burbank Blvd. Corridor and Foothill projects. The effort was modeled after similar programs from other government entities, particularly in the transportation sector, with the goal to preserve small businesses and help them flourish even as they face temporary construction impacts like dust, noise, loss of parking and customers. For the purposes of the pilot program small businesses are defined as having 25 or fewer employees.

“Small businesses serve as the life’s blood of Los Angeles by providing jobs and much needed revenue that fund City services. With this program we hope to assist businesses temporarily impacted as we work to aggressively replace aging infrastructure,” said Nancy Sutley, Chief Sustainability and Economic Development Officer for LADWP.

Program objectives also include helping businesses establish or enhance sustainable practices. This component not only helps the bottom line of businesses by reducing costs, but also helps LADWP meet water conservation and energy efficiency targets. The program also helps provide those temporarily impacted businesses with access to resources outside of LADWP, as well as technical assistance on needs like business planning, accounting and marketing.

###

For more information contact:

Amanda Parsons
Media Relations Manager
(213) 367-5319
amanda.parsons@ladwp.com