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The Soul of the City BID will span Congress Heights and some adjacent neighborhoods in Southeast. The new taxes get reinvested into those areas — leading to the improvement of local businesses.
D.C.’s 13th Business Improvement District has been signed off by the D.C. Council, and once the mayor’s office gives it the go-ahead later this month, tax hikes are coming to businesses and the owners of multifamily housing units in part of Southeast D.C.
And there’s excitement about what it all means.
The Soul of the City BID will span Congress Heights and some adjacent neighborhoods in Southeast. The new taxes get reinvested into those areas — leading to the improvement of local businesses.
When it gets final approval, it’ll be the culmination of 10 years of work from Monica Ray.
“It’s transformative, bringing the power and the leverage of a guaranteed income stream to this part of the city,” Ray said. “This BID has the unique task of bringing together historically disconnected corridors — Wheeler Road, Southern Avenue, Alabama and MLK — and they’ve been adjacent across communities, across neighborhoods.”
“This BID takes a unique take on bringing those together strategically for planning, for collaborative advocacy, and of course, to fight back on those things that are hurting our communities right now,” she added.
Typically, BIDs focus on using the tax revenues toward branding, marketing, safety and beautification work. But Ray said Soul of the City will also use it for workforce development opportunities.
“This means that we really have backing and funding for what we really want to do,” said Keyonna Jones, who owns and operates an art studio and retail store in Congress Heights. “We can build a future that we can see.”
“I feel like we’ve lacked support for a very long time. It felt like that, at least coming from a business perspective,” said LeGreg Harrison, CEO of The Museum DC store. “Now that we have this … the city has assured us that they think we’re important, right? Important enough to give us cleaner streets, make business and retail more attractive.”
There’s also a sense that it adds legitimacy to an area that often feels forgotten — until something bad happens.
“It is so pleasant, it is so beautiful,” Harrison said. “We are the soul of this city.”
And Ray said that one soul will beat with one heart. After years of each neighborhood operating in their own silos, this BID will invite collaboration among them in ways that didn’t exist before.
Organizers hope this expression of confidence from the city will also change the perception people — and businesses — might have of the neighborhood going forward.
“This really means that the city is behind us. They believe in what we’ve done, what we have plans to do,” Jones said. “When the city gets behind you, you really know that you’re doing good things in the area.”
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John Domen
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