The Bellevue Area has officially “graduated” from the Richmond Department of Economic Development’s Commercial Area Revitalization Effort (CARE) program. The CARE program is designed to revitalize older neighborhood commercial districts — like the strip of shops at Bellevue and Brook, and those along MacArthur Avenue:

As a measure of success, the program tracks vacant commercial spaces in its areas of focus, with an end goal of filling as many of those spaces as possible with viable businesses. When the number of vacancies falls below a certain threshold, the area is graduated in order to free up resources for others.

The Bellevue Care Area marks the most recent success in these efforts, and was graduated from the program just this summer after vacancy rates fell below the threshold level. During the life of the program in the Bellevue area, Program Administrator Denise Lawus estimates that the majority of the businesses in the focus area received benefits from the CARE program.

Two of the most recent successes of the program on Bellevue are the Northside Grille and Nicola Flora, both of which recently celebrated their first anniversaries.