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
When Ann Benedetto looks around her neighborhood these days, she doesn’t recognize the Tribeca where she opened her store more than a decade ago.
Back then A Uno, her women’s boutique at the corner of W. Broadway and Duane St., was surrounded by old-school restaurants. But no more.
“Now I have HSBC, Chase, TD Bank, two empty spaces, across from that another empty space — Sotheby’s is handling it, so you can tell from that alone that it’s getting ridiculous,” Benedetto said.
The proliferation of banks and swanky brands is a symptom of the retail gentrification she says is driving small businesses out of the neighborhood.
“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.”
To help improve the odds for Tribeca’s small businesses, and give them a united voice in how their neighborhood develops, Benedetto decided they have to band together.
Over the last few months, she has been recruiting fellow business owners to join her newly minted Tribeca Alliance.
“I’m trying to figure out ways to have the merchants joined together,” she said. “It’s really turning into something.”
Last week marked the first meeting of a steering committee she organized to come up with an agenda and a concrete set of goals for the group.
The Alliance’s first public meeting hasn’t been scheduled yet, but will likely take place in January, she said.
For now, Benedetto is focused on building membership. She says she has been in touch with around 70 businesses so far, but volunteers are still canvassing the neighborhood.
Benedetto is under no illusions that her new group can reverse the trend of increasing rents and encroaching chain stores, but she hopes that by presenting a united front, local independent businesses can at least help manage how the neighborhood is changing, and look after the interests of the shops that are already here.
“I’m not a cockeyed optimist, mind you,” she said. “I know this is a lot of work and a lot of disappointment. But I still am hopeful that we’re going to be able to set an agenda and get some muscle behind it.”
For instance, one of the frustrations that inspired her to start organizing was that her storefront has been shrouded in scaffolding for months and she felt helpless to do anything about it.
But Benedetto emphasized that the most important task will be to fill the “100 empty storefronts” that line the streets of Tribeca.
“There’s such a wealth of things in this area,” she said. “If we can only organize, I think we can do some good work.”
