City Council Approves Fruita Small Business Emergency Assistance Fund

April 23, 2020 at 7:32 p.m.  

At a special remote meeting this evening, the Fruita City Council approved up to $60,000 in designated funds for economic development to create a loan fund for Fruita businesses that are facing financial hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  This loan fund has been as established as the “Fruita Small Business Emergency Assistance Fund”.  This is a partnership between the City of Fruita and the Business Incubator Center, which already share a long-term effective partnership. The Grand Junction Business Incubator Center will administer the loan through the revolving loan fund of Mesa County and will receive applications, make decisions on funding, and handle the repayment of the loans. The Business Incubator Center anticipates accepting applications beginning on April 29, 2020 via the Incubator’s web page (www.gjincubator.org).  Information will be made available next week through the Fruita Chamber of Commerce, the Business Incubator, and the City of Fruita.  

Fruita City Manager Mike Bennett referred to this assistance fund as “a community-first approach utilizing designated economic development funds to assist existing small businesses struggling from forced shutdowns and significant operational reductions due to public health safety measures to combat COVID-19. Partnering with the Business Incubator Center, which already administers a pre-existing small business start-up loan for Fruita businesses makes sense to fairly, effectively and quickly deploy this assistance.”

The loan structure and eligibility requirements can be found below. More information will be available next week. If a business would like to apply for this loan, then the business is encouraged to contact the Business Incubator Center or the City of Fruita. 

For more information, please visit fruita.org/covid19 or email communications@fruita.org

Applications can be found here.