The Back Bay Association’s (BBA)’s plan to become a Business Improvement District (BID) is getting close to completion, according to data presented at the association’s annual meeting last Thursday.

BIDs are special commercial areas in which property owners can organize and fund their own neighborhood services on top of the baseline services provided by the city. Those services generally include neighborhood advertising, public safety improvements, beautification efforts and special events. The BBA has been working to form a BID since 2023. “We are close,” Mike Jammen, chair of the association’s BID committee, said at the meeting. “We’re in the final stages of getting this done, and hopefully when we talk about this next year, we will be there.”

To form a BID, the association must get 60 percent of the 268 parcels in its jurisdiction on board, as well as get 51 percent of the assessed value in the neighborhood to commit to joining. Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the association, said that for the second target, the group was only considering businesses valued at above $4 million.

“Properties valued at $4 million and below, they’ll benefit from [the BID], but we’re not going to charge them for it,” Mainzer-Cohen said in a phone call. “They won’t have to pay.”

The Back Bay includes a number of major developers and insurance groups that hit the $4 million target, and the association has already convinced a number of them to verbally agree to join. According to Jammen’s presentation, the BID committee has achieved 85 percent of its assessed value goal, and 127 parcels have committed to join. Mainzer-Cohen said that the next step was getting them to formally sign appeals to be part of the BID.

“An important thing to understand about BIDs is, you establish a boundary, but you cannot gerrymander,” Meg Mainzer-Cohen, the president of the BBA, said in a phone call. “So for instance, if the owner of the John Hancock building didn't want to be part of the BID, we can’t have a BID boundary that has a big hole in the middle like a donut. There’s a lot of leg work here.”

Boston Properties owns both the Hancock building and the Prudential Center, the Back Bay’s two skyscrapers. Mainzer-Cohen said she would not speak for how Boston Properties felt about joining a BID, but that other conversations with big business players in the neighborhood had gone well. Oxford Properties, the owner of 500 Boylston St., and the insurance companies John Hancock and Liberty Mutual had all voiced support, she said.

“We are in conversations with Simon Properties,” Mainzer-Cohen said, referring to the developer that owns Copley Place. “We’ve had really good conversations with them, we’ve had very good meetings and it’s under discussion.” For now, Mainzer-Cohen said, the BID’s boundaries will match that of the current association, from just north of Newbury Street down to parts of Columbus Avenue, and from Arlington Street to Mass Ave. east to west. The association is, however, considering excluding part of its current coverage from the BID.

“The area of Dalton Street. and Belvidere Street [to Mass Ave.], we are looking at whether to keep that in or out for a number of reasons,” Mainzer-Cohen said. “Some of it has to do with the fact that there’s a big Christian science plaza that’s already tended to, so it doesn’t need a lot of help. There’s a lot of residential over there, and Berklee, so that’s the question we’re back and forth about.”

The association wants to become a BID because of the increased benefits and partnership opportunities with the city. Its goals include better marketing and advertising of the Back Bay as a neighborhood, improved cleanliness, consistent beautification efforts like holiday lighting and summertime planters, and more resources to help the homeless in the neighborhood.