Mayor Sam Adams

 Approximately 94 percent of Portland businesses have fewer than 50 employees. Undoubtedly, Portland is a small business city. At today's City Council meeting, the Portland Development Commission (PDC) unveiled that it is an agency more than capable of serving the needs and requirements of these businesses through new divisions with a dedicated staff of more than 35 professionals.

Small businesses and Portland area neighborhoods can now look to a specific section within the PDC to access resources to improve their storefronts, apply for loans and grants, seek technical assistance and access the broader economy.

“One of my priorities when I entered office was to create a division within PDC to focus on small business and community economic development,” said Mayor Sam Adams. “Byron Estes, the Director of PDC’s new Neighborhood Division, has helped to get this new division up and running and effectively reposition PDC as an organization that does much more than downtown real estate development.” 

In the presentation to Council, Commissioner Charles Wilhoite and PDC’s Executive Director, Bruce Warner, highlighted a number of key initiatives focusing on commercial district revitalization, including Portland’s Main Street program, commercial streetscape projects in areas such as Kenton and 102nd Avenue and the N/NE Economic Development Initiative.

The Mayor and PDC also announced the creation of a new business hotline, 503-865-4BIZ, which is scheduled to go live in early December. This new hotline will connect businesses with City bureaus and the PDC for questions regarding storefront improvement grants, business finance loans, permit, tax and license matters.

The hotline will complement a business Web site for Portland through which businesses will be able to process permit, tax, and license matters, view a calendar of citywide events, and find out information about organizations that provide business assistance services. A beta version of the business Web site is scheduled for release in January.

To view PDC's presentation to Council, click here.