20 Aug, 2020

Grants of up to $10,000 to support city businesses

Small businesses in the city impacted by COVID-19 will benefit from new Marshall Liberal Government grants of up to $10,000 towards enhancing and activating their outdoor areas, supporting jobs and driving patronage in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

To better enable social distancing and support small business, the Marshall Liberal Government has committed $300,000 to the City of Adelaide Outdoor Activation Grant.

The City of Adelaide will administer the grants to eligible city and North Adelaide businesses, to be used to fund medium to long-term street level improvements.

Businesses are encouraged to implement ideas that will support them to:

• Activate the outdoor areas adjacent to their business
• Enhance the presentation of a building or business
• Complement the character of the surrounding area and contribute to amenity and a more interesting and exciting street experience.
• Fixed external heating and cooling devices
• Non-fixed outdoor dining furniture including portable outdoor heaters
• Awnings/shade provisions
• Repainting of external shop frontage, including artwork and murals
• Adding external materials that provide attractive detail, such as texture or tiling
• Improving accessibility for all users
• Adding greening elements such as planting vines, green walls or window boxes
• Addition of bi-fold windows to the street front

Eligible improvements include:

Anyone who owns a currently active business or property with a currently active small business in the city of North Adelaide can apply for the grants of up to $10,000 to cover 80 per cent of the cost of improvements. Each business will need to fund 20 per cent of the project costs.

Adelaide MP Rachel Sanderson said the Marshall Liberal Government was doing everything it could to support South Australian businesses, jobs and livelihoods during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We know many businesses are hurting right now and that’s why the Marshall Liberal Government has committed $300,000 towards this initiative supporting small businesses and jobs in the city and North Adelaide,” said Minister Sanderson.

“There’s no doubt these grants will go some way in supporting our city and North Adelaide businesses, better enabling them to cater for current social distancing restrictions, as well as providing a much-needed shot-in-the-arm for South Australians conducting this new work.

“Small business is critical to South Australia’s economic recovery and these grants will enable owners to make outdoor improvements including installing fixed heating and cooling green walls to help drive patronage at this challenging time – and beyond.”

Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor said the grants are a great opportunity for businesses to make a range of improvements to help them recover and thrive from the impacts of COVID-19.

“We understand just how tough it is for our city and North Adelaide businesses right now and this is another useful way we can offer our support to help attract customers back to these businesses,” said the Lord Mayor.

“Businesses can make improvements such as fixed external heating and cooling devices, non-fixed outdoor dining furniture or even greening elements such as planting vines, green walls or window boxes,” said the Lord Mayor.

“These are the types of projects that might be put on hold while business owners watch their spending at a time like this but we’re encouraging them to go ahead and are here to help meet the costs involved.”

The City of Adelaide Outdoor Activation Grant opens today.

Update on 9 December 2020 - this grant is no longer available for application

Media team