D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration is offering new grants for businesses that open or expand in vacated downtown properties as part of an ongoing effort to bring life back to a major city corridor.

The $3 million in”downtown recovery grants” Bowser announced Monday aims to incentivize businesses to relocate or expand into downtown. The grant can cover construction, rent, and utilities. Up to five businesses are expected to each get between $200,000 to $3,000,000. To qualify, a business must lease a space that has been vacant for at least six months in the Downtown Business Improvement District or the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, among other requirements including completing project by September 2025 and demonstrating how the project will drive foot traffic.

The new downtown grants are part of $19.6 million in grant opportunities opening this month — many of them preexisting — that the Bowser administration hopes will help it revitalize downtown. Since the COVID-19 public health emergency ended, the city’s epicenter has struggled to bring back daytime crowds. Much of downtown is commercial property, and office use is still at 50% of pre-pandemic levels. Just this month, Fannie Mae — which holds the largest private sector office lease in the city — announced it will vacate its headquarters in downtown earlier that previously planned.

But the mayor struck a more optimistic tone on Monday, pointing to downtown’s attractions outside of the office, including restaurants and museums. She said she was downtown at the National Theater with her daughter this past weekend, and spotted crowds of people spilling out of hotels and the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

“Downtown is going to be just fine,” Mayor Bowser said at a Monday press conference. “We recognize that we need to pull more people — more workers, more visitors, more restaurant goers in our downtown. But we also recognize that we have a lot of great activity, improving activity, in the downtown.”

The Bowser administration is focused on downtown’s recovery because the two square miles have historically generated significant revenue for the city. Approximately 35% of the District’s businesses are in downtown, along with roughly 185,000 jobs, which generates about $1 billion dollars in net revenue annually, according to Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Nina Albert.

The Bowser administration on Monday also announced the first recipients of the “Family Fun Destination” grant, which is intended to go to nonprofits that develop family-friendly attractions in downtown. The grant’s inaugural awardees are the National Children’s Museum, the National Building Museum, the Historical Society of Washington at the DC History Center, and CityDance Productions at Transformer Gallery. Bowser also announced that the next round of the family fun grants opened Jan. 26; there is $6.5 million available for grant recipients in that program and the applications are due March 15.

“We love being the nation’s capital,” Bowser said. “But we also want to make it very clear that this is a place where families can enjoy the city. And we want to be supportive of our institutions and making them even more family friendly.”

Applications are also open for several other grant opportunities, and not just for businesses located in downtown, the Bowser administration said Tuesday. There’s the $2.55 million “Great Streets Retail Small Business” grant for small businesses of designated neighborhoods to make capital improvements; the $3 million “Neighborhood Prosperity Fund” grant for mixed-used development projects in census tracts where unemployment is at least 10%; and the $1.4 million “Locally Made” grant for manufacturing businesses to improve commercial properties.

Opening all these grant opportunities at once is supposed to be more streamlined and easier for applicants to navigate, Albert said Tuesday. If people need assistance, there will be an expo on the retail grant opportunities Feb. 5 at the MLK library.

In addition to boosting downtown businesses, the city is trying to make downtown more residential. The Bowser administration wants to attract 15,000 new residents to live downtown, per its five-year comeback plan announced in January 2023, in part by convincing developers to convert offices to residential units. But office-to-residential conversions have proved difficult: 18 redevelopment projects have stalled or “appear paused” due to rising construction costs and interest rates, according to a recent report from the Downtown Business Improvement District.

There’s likely more ideas for downtown revitalization to come: Bowser recently appointed a task force to reimagine the Chinatown/Gallery Place Metro area with the possible exit of the Capitals and Wizards from Capital One Arena.