Niagara Falls Small Business Property Improvement Program (NFSBPIP) ($5 Million)
NFSBPIP provides matching capital project grant funds of up to $100,000 to commercial and mixed-use building owners in four targeted investment corridors with the goal to expand neighborhood-serving businesses including retail, restaurants, and other services, and reestablish and strengthen traditional walkable community business districts.

Click here for the application

Niagara Falls City Market  and Agritourism & Food Entrepreneurship ($19 Million)

City Market will become a hub of activity for residents and visitors offering a wider range of locally produced food and goods, a central year-round gathering space with programming and events, and a stronger connection to the agriculture sector and food entrepreneurship. This project will fund planning that explores the short-and long-term future of the City Market Area and provides the framework for capital investments. The planning and design work will culminate with the construction of a new City Market. With City Market as a key anchor, the project also includes a strategic planning process that purposefully connects the tourism sector with the agriculture sector, and addresses capital, programmatic and organizational needs for the ecosystem.

Oakwood Cemetery ($2.5 Million)

The project includes historic restoration and public access at three historic structures including new roofs, stone repointing, and other structural repairs to stabilize and restore the 1877 chapel, the 1913 Green & Wicks mausoleum, and the 1922 stone office.

Niagara Arts and Cultural Center (NACC) ($8.5 Million)

This project involves the historic rehabilitation of the NACC’s 1000-seat theater to create a modern performance facility for this growing education center. The NACC is the front door to the Pine Avenue commercial district and is centrally located near several other important historical and cultural amenities such as the City Market, Oakwood Cemetery, and Portage Road.

$5 Million Total Investment

Hydraulic Power Plaza
The project will create a public plaza that interprets the historic significance of the former canal in downtown Niagara Falls as it related to the city’s first hydroelectric power generation. The plaza will create a new gateway between downtown and Niagara Falls State Park, and the canal and rail interpretation will bisect the site creating up to four future development parcels.

Riverway Tree Walk
This project builds a scenic overlook enabling views of the upper Niagara River Rapids, Goat Island and the Falls. The deck will connect to the newly constructed 3rd Street trail that provides a pedestrian link between the city street grid and the State Park through the site. Once completed, USA Niagara will seek appropriate-scaled private development along historic Buffalo Avenue providing appropriate use and value to this long-vacant site.

Cataract House Hotel
The project will interpret the significant Underground Railroad history of the site of the former Cataract House Hotel along the upper rapids of the Niagara River at the entrance to Niagara Falls State Park.

Niagara Falls Public Library
This project completes the final phase of a comprehensive inventory, rehousing and digitization project for the Local History Collection which provides important source material for cultural heritage tourism and placemaking work being undertaken in the City.

Portage Interpretation 

The project will interpret the seven-mile-long Niagara Portage that linked Lake Ontario to Lake Erie by providing travelers with a land route around Niagara Falls. The portage trail ran from the upper river to below the escarpment in Lewiston. In the 18th century, Europeans converted the trail into a road capable of supporting oxcarts.