BIRMINGHAM — As new businesses open in downtown Birmingham, they now have a guide to help answer questions about operating in the city.

This guide, which can be accessed on the Birmingham Shopping District’s website, is intended to be a resource for new businesses and prospective new businesses as they navigate the early stages of opening in Birmingham.

“The Birmingham Shopping District’s business development committee works on a variety of initiatives, including business recruitment and retention,” BSD Executive Director Erika Bassett said. “As part of this, the committee wanted to provide a resource guide to new and prospective new businesses to make the process of opening as easy as possible.”

Many city departments collaborated on the creation of this guide, including community development, the clerk’s office and more. They also reached out to local brokers, property owners and businesses to help with the development of the guide.

“Ultimately, we hope that this guide serves as a resource to new and current businesses, and also to landlords and brokers that are actively recruiting within the city. It’s also intended to serve as a launching pad for future conversations on how we can best support our local business community,” Bassett said.

Planning Director Nicholas Dupuis said he understands that opening a new business can be difficult, which is why they hope this new guide will help make the process at least a little bit easier.

“One of the main functions of the BSD is to support businesses down here, their attraction, retention and growth,” Dupuis said.

The sections of the guide are titled, “Opening a business,” “Exterior signage,” and “Ways to be involved,” and more. There is a section in the guide for “common questions.”

Dupuis added that he thinks it might be helpful to people who are reading the guide to see the photos of city staff’s faces. These photos with city staff’s names and contact information can be found on pages 8 and 16 of the guide. “It adds a little bit of personal touch to it,” he said.

“Our vibrant community continues to welcome new retailers and restaurants, and we want to support them with a multifaceted approach,” Bassett said. “Ensuring that businesses have the answers to common questions and know who to contact within the city when they need us is just the first step. Ultimately, we want to build relationships with our business community so that we can serve as a resource and have ongoing conversations, not only when they open, but for the duration of their time here in Birmingham.”

The guide can be found at birmingham.com/open. Digital and print versions were also distributed to  property owners, brokers and many new businesses.