BID Programs & Publications

This is the program area steadily stoking your fear of missing out. The BID’s Marketing, Communications and Events team shapes the Georgetown narrative by promoting the area’s unique assets across numerous marketing channels, including events, public relations, digital communications, social media, advertising and publications. The team fosters relationships with media and PR outlets, builds community partnerships, and engages audiences online and through events, to keep Georgetown fresh, exciting, and top-of-mind. From free outdoor movies and fitness classes in the summer, to weekly features on the commercial district’s most interesting people, and new public art initiatives, the Georgetown story is still being written.

When one of DC’s hottest new restaurants opens in a cobblestone alleyway, Canada’s favorite leisurewear brand moves to M St, or a locally owned coffee shop finds its footing on Book Hill, no one thinks about how they all got there. The BID’s Planning & Economic Development program supports a positive business climate, business recruitment and retention, and commercial real estate occupancy. The BID collects and analyzes data about the Georgetown economy and provides information to building owners, business owners, commercial real estate brokers, and other stakeholders to help them make better-informed investment decisions.

Every day, as if by magic, Georgetown defies its age. But those sparkling streets and beautiful public spaces aren’t through the stroke of a wand, but rather the hard work of the Georgetown BID’s dedicated Streetscape & Street Services program—ensuring the commercial district looks clean, and feels safe and welcoming, all year round.

Contracted to Block by Block and overseen by BID staff, a crew of 14 full- and part-time street team members is on the street every day of the year except Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Clean Team sweeps 142 block faces, 20 alleys, and the C&O Canal Towpath—about five miles of sidewalk and gutter—each day, and assists with the set-up and breakdown of the BID’s many events. The Team also performs nightly power washing of sidewalks and alleys in warm weather, oversees rat abatement and control, and removes snow and ice from crosswalks and pedestrian bridges in the winter.

The BID beautifies and enhances the neighborhood through a variety of seasonal landscape and décor programs, including 300 pink wave petunia flower baskets in the spring, festive décor during the holidays, and year-round tree maintenance in partnership with the city.

Enhancing our streetscape initiatives, the BID’s Placemaking program designs, implements and manages improvements to the public spaces throughout Georgetown to provide safe, attractive, and active places for residents, workers, and visitors. Through plaza furniture, umbrellas, and plantings, Georgetown’s unique narrative is reflected into the built environment.

Spend more time in Georgetown, and less coming and going. At its core, the BID’s transportation program is focused on just that—continuously advocating, planning and making accessibility improvements, from alleviating rush hour traffic, to reconfiguring the pedestrian experience, installing a new cycletrack for cyclists, and working on the Water Street Staircase Rehabilitation & Capital Crescent Trail Trailhead Project. In addition to short-term solutions, the BID continues to chip away at long-term transportation goals. Georgetown’s appeal is timeless, but the ways in which residents and visitors access it is ever-evolving.

Georgetown Ministry Center provides homeless outreach services in and around Georgetown for the Georgetown BID. Street Outreach services include ongoing rounds throughout the Georgetown community to engage with individuals in need, touchpoints with local businesses, and following up on new concerns within the community. Street Outreach service members are not an emergency response team, and have no authority to move or remove individuals from locations. Rather, we can engage with and encourage individuals to relocate or to clean-up their belongings, and to begin building bridges – or reconnecting them – to services.

The BID is in continuous communication and partnership with the DC Metropolitan Police Department and advocates for appropriate police coverage. The BID also provides its members with useful and relevant information on a wide range of public safety-related topics, and periodically hosts public safety meetings at the BID offices.

In 2022, Georgetown Heritage welcomed a new Canal boat to Georgetown for the first time in nearly a decade – offering one-hour guided historical tours along the first mile of the C&O Canal National Historical Park (NHP). Visitors can learn about the fascinating history, technology and culture of the Canal, and the surprising stories of the people who lived, worked and played here over the past two centuries. The tours are currently on hiatus as the National Park Service completes important restoration and maintenance work on the canal. Visit the Georgetown Heritage website for more updates on this project, including upcoming walking tours.

Georgetown’s streatery program launched in 2021 and fueled Georgetown’s post-pandemic economic recovery. It continues to shape our public realm and has further activated our commercial district – currently supporting outdoor dining for 43 restaurants. Since installing the streateries and sidewalk extensions, crashes and serious injuries have also been reduced on M Street and Wisconsin Avenue by 50%, making our roads safer and more comfortable for all users.

Four years in, the streatery program run by the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is transitioning from a temporary program to a permanent one. To comply with DDOT’s new city-wide permanent guidelines, the BID and food establishments will be applying for new permits to keep streateries where desired and approved, while removing sidewalk extensions, bus stop extensions, and streateries that are no longer desired or eligible under DDOT’s new program. For the benefit of the community, below is a link with more details on the changes you can expect to see throughout Georgetown.

In 2021, the Federal City Council, together with the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), Georgetown Business Improvement District (BID), and National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), initiated a study to identify potential transit improvements to connect Georgetown to the Metrorail system.

The goal of the Georgetown Transit Enhancement to Metrorail Project was to identify a preliminary range of alternatives that would provide workers, students, residents and visitors with a reliable, frequent, safe, and sustainable non-auto connection between Georgetown and the Metrorail system.