North Beach CRA offers up to $20,000 in rent help to replace vape shops and pawnshops

The North Beach Community Redevelopment Agency will help pay the rent for businesses that move into North Beach storefronts now held by check-cashing stores, pawnshops, vape shops and other uses the city’s zoning no longer allows, under a one-year pilot program posted on the agency’s website Friday.

The Commercial Lease Subsidy Program reimburses up to $2,500 a month, or $20,000 a year, paid every three months, according to the agency’s guidelines. The program’s budget for fiscal 2027 is $80,000, enough for four awards at the maximum. Participants can also get back their annual city business tax receipt fees.

Who can apply

The money is limited to properties inside both the agency’s boundaries (65th Street to 87th Terrace, between the ocean and Rue Notre Dame) and the North Beach Commercial Character Overlay District, a zoning district the city created in 2024. Agency staff confirm the location before an application goes forward.

There are two types of eligible deals:

• Replacing a nonconforming business. The current tenant is a “legal nonconforming” business: one that was there before the overlay rules and can keep operating even though new ones aren’t allowed. The guidelines list check-cashing stores, pawnshops, convenience stores, pharmacies, package liquor stores, souvenir and T-shirt shops, tobacco and vape shops, tattoo studios and occult science establishments as examples. Payments start once the owner signs a lease with a permitted business.
• New arts and culture tenants. Businesses with no existing location in the district, such as artisan makers, immersive or interactive spaces, social-media museums, creative retail and small performance venues.

Rent, mortgage fees, property or renter’s insurance and real estate taxes count as eligible costs. The lease must be signed within 180 days of applying, and the business must open within 180 days.

Applicants meet first with agency staff, then file an intent to apply and an application through the city’s GoSmart portal (mbbiz.gosmart.org). Recommended applications go to the agency’s board (the City Commission plus a county commissioner, according to the agency’s October presentation) for approval. The guidelines say the agency’s executive director can waive some eligibility rules on staff’s recommendation. If the pilot is extended, a business could take part for up to three years, with a $60,000 cap.

Background

The agency created the program by resolution (CRA Resolution 047-2026), according to the guidelines, which do not give an application deadline. It adds to the agency’s facade grants for commercial and residential buildings. The agency collects about $3.4 million a year in tax-increment money and is writing a five-year plan for how to spend it; its arts and events spending has been part of that debate.

The plan’s consultants give a progress report at the agency’s advisory committee meeting Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 4:30 p.m. at Normandy Shores Golf Club, 2401 Biarritz Drive. The city sent a corrected notice for that date Friday, after an earlier email listed Nov. 12 in error. The city’s notice lists Redevelopment Specialist Francisco Brignoni, [email protected], as the agency contact.