(a) The corporation shall give priority in granting assistance to those projects:

1. (1) with significant private financing or matching funds through other public entities;
2. (2) likely to produce a high return on public investment;
3. (3) with existence of significant support from the local business community, local government, community organizations, academic institutions and other regional parties;
4. (4) deemed likely to increase the community's economic and social viability;
5. (5) with cost benefit analysis that demonstrates increased economic activity, sustainable job creation and investments;
6. (6) located in distressed communities;
7. (7) whose application is submitted by multiple entities, both public and private; or
8. (8) such other requirements as determined by the corporation as are necessary to implement the provisions of the program;

9. (9) applications for assistance will be scored competitively, using a point system. Applications under each track will be scored separately; requests for assistance under one track thus will not be scored against requests for assistance under another track. Following are the scoring criteria and the points assigned to each area:

   1. (i) President & CEO discretion. ESD's President and CEO will be able to assign up to 10 points in recognition of factors not otherwise captured in the scoring, such as geographic distribution throughout the State and a project's potentially transformative nature.
   2. (ii) Scoring process. Applications will be scored in ESDC's regional offices, with assistance from ESDC's central office in estimating a project's fiscal and economic benefits and performing credit analysis. Funding recommendations will be made based on scoring results and final decisions will be made once President and CEO discretionary points have been assigned.

   	Maximum Score
   Criterion	Business	Infrastructure	Downtown
   Private financing leveraged	10	10	5
   Public financing leveraged	5	5	5
   Return on public investment	10	5	5
   Increased economic activity	10	5	5
   Distressed Census Tract	10	10	10
   Application supported by multiple public/private entities	7	7	7
   Local/regional support	3	3	3
   Significant regional breadth, likely to have wide regional impact, or likely to increase the community's economic and social viability	5	5	5
   Minority or women-owned business enterprise	5	5	5
   Comports with identifiable regional development plans/initiatives	5	5	5
   Loan v. grant	10	10	10
   ESDC credit score (considers cash flow, collateral and guarantees)	10	10	10
   Project readiness	5	5	5
   Sustainable development	5	5	5
   Reuse/remediation	5	5	5
   Identified tenants	5	5	5
   Potential to revitalize a downtown neighborhood	3	3	3
   Consistency/preserve architectural character	2	2	2
   President & CEO discretion	10	10	10
   Total	125	115	110