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ST. LOUIS — More than $1.1 million in grants will hit the bank accounts of dozens of small businesses and nonprofits in north St. Louis next week, the first piece of a long-awaited $37 million grant program aimed at helping the city’s beleaguered north side.

“This is the shot in the arm north St. Louis businesses have been asking for,� Mayor Tishaura O. Jones said at an event celebrating the grant winners Friday afternoon.

The awards, $15,000 apiece through the north St. Louis grant program, will be funded with federal pandemic aid money allocated to St. Louis in 2021. They cap years of political wrangling over the spending, bureaucratic hiccups over the legislation creating it, and the rules for scoring applicants and disbursing the money.

And next week’s disbursals are just the first step. In all, the St. Louis Development Corporation, tasked with implementing the program, approved some $30.2 million in grants to nearly 300 small businesses and nonprofits north of Delmar Boulevard on Thursday.

“The city stands ready to invest in businesses along corridors in north St. Louis to bring back the vibrancy that used to be in north St. Louis,� Jones said at an SLDC business assistance office in Sumner High School, where she spoke with business owners and nonprofit leaders who qualified for funding.

SLDC has spent much of the last year accepting and reviewing applications for the program following a legislative change that clarified scoring criteria and expanded eligibility to all of north St. Louis. The original bill targeted funds only at the main commercial corridors of north St. Louis, such as Natural Bridge Avenue, West Florissant Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive.

Many of the selected businesses and organizations, particularly those applying for larger sums for expansion or other projects, still need to finish final assessments of their projects’ viability, including whether they have enough additional sources of capital to complete their plans. But those final assessments should be completed in the coming weeks, sending those dollars into northside communities in the near future, said SLDC President and CEO Neal Richardson.

It has been two years since the program first began accepting applications. But SLDC delayed making awards and later requested legislative changes to clarify grant award criteria, which passed last summer. Richardson and the mayor stressed that the city has worked hard to try and ensure it follows federal rules governing the money so that no business has their award clawed back.

The 77 businesses that applied for the smaller, $15,000 grants for business operations have already completed the vetting process, Richardson said, meaning those dollars will start flowing immediately.

“We’re confident in those businesses,� Richardson said.

Mary Ann Hamilton was one of the entrepreneurs who will be benefiting from the $15,000 grant. She learned about the grant opportunity while taking business classes at the Northside Economic Empowerment Center, the SLDC business assistance office in Sumner High in the Ville neighborhood. She runs , which produces a talk show highlighting local people and issues and said the money could help her buy some branded t-shirts and coffee mugs and pay employees.

But mostly, she said, the grant is a vote of confidence in her work building her own show.

“No one has ever done that for me, make me feel good about myself and all my hard work,� Hamilton said.

Because just $30.2 million of the $37 million has been allocated thus far, and some proposed projects could fall through, there could be future awards under the grant program, Richardson said.

Some of the larger grantees under the $22 million set aside for “community enhancement� grants include the Urban League, Herbert Hoover Boys and Girls Club and the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Center, all of which were awarded $2 million grants. Popular restaurant Sweetie Pie’s Upper Crust, which had been planning a comeback with a new location at Kingshighway and Dr. Martin Luther King Drive, was allocated a $1.5 million grant, though it lists a location at 4901 Delmar Boulevard.

Carr Square Tenant Corporation, a housing organization north of downtown run by Rodney Hubbard, also is listed for tentative approval of a $500,000 grant.