Local business owner Ann Benedetto said even her guard dog Niki couldn’t keep the banks and chain stores out of her neighborhood, so she’s trying to start a small-business group with some teeth.
BY YANNIC RACK
Tribeca’s small business owners are pushing back against chain stores and empty storefronts at the first public meeting of the neighborhood’s new business alliance later this month.
“We really have to do something to keep this neighborhood alive, and that’s what we’re trying,” said Tribeca Alliance president Ann Benedetto, who started the group last year out of frustration with permanent scaffolding outside her boutique on W. Broadway.
The Tribeca Alliance already has around 135 members from across the neighborhood, which Benedetto said demonstrates the need for a united front to address issues such as construction, trash, and traffic — not to mention the area’s abandoned storefronts, which more often than not are eventually filled by retail chains or bank branches.
“The real estate of these commercial spaces is going so sky-high that only corporations and banks are able to afford it. If you’re a small, privately owned business, you don’t have a chance,” Benedetto told Downtown Express in November when she launched the group.
At an organizational meeting last month, the group formed a ten-member steering committee, elected officers, and chose a slogan: “Shop small, spend local.”
A group of volunteers is now busy building a website and phone app, as well as putting together maps, a video, logos and signage to present at the public meeting, whose agenda is still open for suggestions.
Benedetto said she is also inviting local elected officials to attend, in the hope that they’ll take notice and get behind the coalition’s efforts. She wants a big turnout from local businesses to show them the group deserves clout.
“We have to show up in numbers, so they know we mean business,” she said.
The Tribeca Alliance’s first public meeting is on Wednesday, Feb. 24, from 6:30-9 p.m. at the Millenium Hilton hotel on Church St. near the World Trade Center.
