The D.C. government is awarding a grant of more than $3,700,000 to the Anacostia Business Improvement District to create an “Anacostia Arts and Culture District” and fund new programs, signage, and public art in the Southeast D.C. neighborhood.

Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED) announced the investment Friday with Kristina Noell, executive director of the Anacostia BID, who helped spearhead the initiative and will lead the project, according to a press release. It’s part of a larger effort from the mayor’s office to create “innovation districts” and help neighborhoods bounce back financially from the pandemic: the city awarded $5 million to two other business improvement districts, the Southwest BID and the Golden Triangle BID, in May.

“This grant will help us amplify the creativity and artistic innovation that has always existed in Ward 8 and create a vibrant place that speaks to the community and visitors alike,” Noell said in a statement.

Noell is among the local leaders in Anacostia’s tight-knit business community who’ve advocated for more investments in the majority-Black neighborhood for decades, especially over the past few years. “The thing is, we’re a community that was already suffering and underserved,” Noell told DCist about a year into the pandemic. “Our businesses are extremely creative, and they’ve had to be. They are always having to figure out how to survive.”

The Anacostia BID is a nonprofit that helps promote businesses along 30 square blocks and works to increase public and private investments in the area; the grant will help the BID hire more staffers, according to the release. The funds will support local artists who work in visual arts, theater, music, film, and culinary arts with the aim of bringing more patrons to local restaurants and retail stores, Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio said in a statement.

Local leaders are still in the early planning phases of what the new arts district will look like and how it will function, but DMPED says the grant will be used to improve the infrastructure and design of the neighborhood, commission public artworks, and even dispatch a shuttle to transport visitors to key locations like the Anacostia Arts Center and the Anacostia Playhouse.

“What I’m excited to see is a rededication to the continued work and arts and culture that folks in Anacostia have always done,” Jess Randolph, associate creative director of the Anacostia Arts Center, told DCist in an interview. “Sometimes, when you’ve been doing work for so long, you get lost in the weeds of the work. But this statement is a reminder of how important it is to keep doing it.”

Randolph adds that she believes in Noell as a leader of the initiative. The city rarely collaborates with Anacostia on ideas like this, she says, and this presents a new opportunity to highlight D.C. culture. Her first thought upon hearing the announcement was: “Finally.”

“I always call Anacostia one of the last true strongholds of what it means to be a native Washingtonian — from the music we love to the foods we eat,” Randolph says, adding that she hopes the project ensures that any new efforts don’t displace existing residents and businesses in the neighborhood. “It’s important to build new things, but also to make sure that the people who’ve always been there get to be part of that journey.”