BREAKING NEWS Friday, October 25, 2002

by Lisa Fickenscher

Four business owners in Lower Manhattan have started the Downtown Business Network, a group aimed at helping local entrepreneurs boost their revenue.

The organization will publish a directory of nonretail businesses located below Chambers Street with the hope that larger businesses in the area will support their smaller neighbors.

Co-founder Shelley Spector, who owns her own eponymous public relations firm, say many small businesses have depleted their federal grant funds and are looking for ways to increase their revenues.

"It doesn't matter how many loans and grants a company gets," says Barbara Krasne, co-founder of the network. "The main problem for these companies is regaining their client base." Ms. Krasne runs BK Services Group, a management consulting firm downtown.

Today the group will begin accepting information at www.downtownbusinessnetwork.com about companies that would like to be included in the directory.

Among the members of the Downtown Business Network advisory board are John Wang, president of Asian American Business Development Center; Alice O'Rourke, executive director of the NewYork New Media Association; and Shirley Jaffe, vice president of Alliance for Downtown New York. The two other co-founders are marketers Lisa Chapman of Chapmanworks and Mary Olson of Transition Networks.

Copyright 2002, Crain Communications, Inc.