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DC small business relief for construction disruption on Capitol Hill corridors.
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Sign in to save this grantIf your Capitol Hill storefront sits on Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Potomac Avenue SE, or 8th Street SE, roadwork may be keeping customers away. The FY26 Capitol Hill Construction Impact Grant offers $5,000 to $15,000 to help cover rent, utilities, and other essential costs while construction disrupts your block. But eligibility is not about being “on Capitol Hill.” It is about being inside the exact impact zone for one of two named DDOT projects, and those projects have different start dates. The Pennsylvania Avenue and Potomac Avenue SE Intersection project is active now[1].
The 8th Street Bus Priority Project had not yet broken ground when this funding cycle opened[1]. That timing difference shapes what revenue loss you can document and when your disruption window begins. Applications close at 4:00 PM ET on June 12, 2027 via the DC grants portal. With no published scoring rubric, your ability to prove a direct link between the named project and your financial need is the deciding factor.
Before gathering tax returns or lease documents, confirm your address lands inside the official impact zone. This grant is hyper-local. The ArcGIS map referenced in the NOFA, not a general neighborhood boundary, determines whether you qualify.
DMPED tied this funding to two distinct infrastructure projects, and their construction timelines are not the same[1]. The Pennsylvania Avenue and Potomac Avenue SE Intersection project is active now. Businesses there can document revenue loss since physical barriers appeared. The 8th Street Bus Priority Project corridor runs from Pennsylvania Ave SE south to Virginia Ave SE. The NOFA confirmed this project had not yet started when applications opened[1]. Virginia Ave SE is the hard southern boundary. A storefront one block further south does not qualify for this specific funding.
The timing gap on 8th Street creates a documentation challenge. You are applying before major work begins, so a straight sales comparison to a pre-construction baseline may not yet tell the story. If DDOT activity has already redirected traffic, narrowed lanes, or posted signage on your block, document those preliminary disruptions now. Foot traffic counts, POS data tied to specific dates, and copies of any DDOT notices help establish when the impact on your business actually started.
If your address is close to Virginia Ave SE on the 8th Street corridor, verify your exact position using the official ArcGIS tool before investing time in the application. The southern boundary is a hard stop, not an approximate line.
DMPED is offering $5,000 to $15,000 per award from a total pool of $150,000, which funds 10 to 30 businesses[2]. No matching funds are required. The funds are designed to cover operating costs you are struggling to pay because construction is keeping customers away. Allowable costs include:
Costs outside that list will not survive panel review. Lobbying, capital improvements unrelated to construction mitigation, and any expense incurred outside the construction project period are explicitly unallowable[1]. Budget your request around what you can prove with receipts, not around the maximum possible award. Since FY24 awardee data is no longer publicly accessible, there is no verified benchmark for what a “typical” award looks like. The only safe guidance is to request what you can substantiate.
Do’s
Don’ts
This application carries a genuine documentation load. DMPED requires 11 distinct items, including a package of seven separate affidavit forms[3]. Each one needs to be signed and uploaded. Running through the list now, before you start the portal, will save significant time.
DC Business License OTR Tax Certification (Clean Hands) from DC Office of Tax and Revenue IRS W9 Form Revenue Loss Statement with supporting financial documentation Impact Narrative linking your business to a specific named DDOT project Lease or Deed proving site control DMPED Insurance Policies Affidavit Form DMPED Required Financial Documents Statement Form DMPED Statement of Certification Form DMPED Ethics and Accountability Form DIFS Supplier Portal registration with MFA setup completed
Required Steps
The DIFS Supplier Portal step deserves specific attention. DIFS is the DC government’s payment system. DMPED cannot issue grant funds to a business that has not completed supplier registration[4]. This is not a submission requirement for the application itself, but it is a disbursement prerequisite that many applicants discover only after receiving an award. The portal now requires Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). If your account has been inactive since before August 2024, you must complete MFA re-enrollment before the system recognizes your registration as usable. Registration is at cfo.dc.gov/page/supplier-portal. For help: suppliers@dc.gov or (202) 442-6870.
Start DIFS registration before you submit. Winning an award and then discovering your supplier registration is incomplete, or that MFA re-enrollment has locked your account, creates delays that have nothing to do with application quality. It is a separate process that runs on its own timeline.
Important Note
The Clean Hands certificate also requires advance planning. The DC Office of Tax and Revenue issues this certification, and resolving any outstanding tax balance or fine before the deadline can take time. If your account has an open item, address it now rather than after you have assembled the rest of your package.
Because DMPED does not publish a scoring rubric, the application offers no point-by-point optimization target[2]. A panel reviews each application and evaluates whether the financial need is real and whether the causal link between the construction and the revenue drop is credible. That means the strength of your narrative is doing most of the work.
A credible causal narrative answers a specific question: what changed on a specific date, and what did that change do to your revenue? “Business has been slow” will not satisfy a panel reviewer. What will: a month-by-month POS comparison showing sales before and after DDOT work began on a named street, photos of construction barriers blocking your storefront or parking, copies of DDOT project notices, and a budget showing which line items you cannot cover because foot traffic dropped. The more precisely you can anchor the drop to the DDOT project by name and date, the more credible the narrative becomes.
If your business is on the 8th Street corridor where construction had not yet started, build your narrative around the concrete preliminary disruptions already visible on your block: lane shifts, signage, utility prep work, or detour signage that redirects traffic. Document with dates and photos. A panel reading your application should not have to guess why your storefront is being affected before heavy equipment arrives.
Expert Tip
Geographic eligibility is the first hard gate. The NOFA directs all applicants to a specific ArcGIS web app to verify whether their address falls within the construction impact zone[1]. The app ID is 19119b86708d4ce5b1d656080ea1dd62, accessible at dcgis.maps.arcgis.com.
Type your exact business address into the tool. If the result places your location outside the shaded zone, the application will not advance regardless of how strong the narrative is. Addresses near the zone boundary, particularly near Virginia Ave SE on the 8th Street corridor, are worth verifying with particular care. If you are on the edge and believe the DDOT project activity genuinely affects your block, that boundary position should appear explicitly in your impact narrative with geographic specificity about the detour or lane closure affecting your access.
All applications submit electronically through grants.dc.gov by June 12, 2027. No hand delivery or mailed submissions are accepted. After the deadline, DMPED conducts a screening review, then a panel review, then Deputy Mayor approval. The NOFA specifies 45 business days from the deadline for notifications[1], which puts the estimated decision date around mid-August 2026.
If the ArcGIS map confirms your address does not fall inside the impact zone, there are two other DMPED-adjacent programs that may apply. The Restaurant and Retail Stabilization Grant launched in May 2026 with a total pool of $3.875 million and awards up to $50,000 for restaurants and retailers that experienced revenue loss in 2025. It covers a much broader geographic area than the CHCI program and carries a separate deadline. Worth checking if the Capitol Hill map excludes you.
The application itself is not long, but the proof of impact is. Most of the difficulty is in building a credible causal narrative without a scoring rubric to work against, and in making sure every compliance document is complete before the portal deadline. The 11-item document list and the DIFS registration step each have their own timelines that run alongside the application process itself.
If you want a professional to review your impact narrative and compliance package before submission, a Grant Assessment is the right starting point. It is a lower-friction way to find gaps in your proof of loss before they reach a panel reviewer. The base assessment fee can be applied toward the Full Application service if you choose that path. For businesses that want the full package handled, from narrative construction through DIFS registration coordination, the managed Full Application service covers the process end to end.
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