GSC launches new site

Published 9:45 pm Monday, December 1, 2008

A Suffolk group whose mission is to promote businesses in the city’s “central commercial core” has a new tool at its disposal with the debut on Monday of its first Web site.

“It’s an opportunity for us to better interact with our members and to allow our members to interact with one another,” Greater Suffolk Council President Dave Arnold said Monday.

The site also can serve as a marketing tool for people and businesses interested in the area served by the council, he said.

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The group organized a few years ago “to advocate for businesses within Suffolk’s central commercial core,” an area roughly bounded by West Washington Street and the Route 58 Bypass, Arnold said.

The group holds a monthly Second Tuesdays program, which gives its members a chance to network in the relaxed setting of a restaurant or other business, and it will host the second Greater Suffolk Council New Year’s Eve Celebration on Dec. 31.

“A good business environment fosters a good quality of life,” Arnold said, and the Council is focused on encouraging that environment, especially within its area of influence.

“This organization’s focus is not quite as broad as the Chamber of Commerce … but it’s broader than the Downtown Business Association,” he added.

The group’s new Web site extols the benefits of membership, noting that the Council provides avenues for partnership, advocacy, information, interaction, promotion and advice.

The group has 39 members and offers a membership application on its new site. Arnold and others hope the ready availability of information about the Council will help entice more businesses to join.

Even clients of the group’s members will find the site useful, though, as monthly newsletters archived there highlight various facets of members’ businesses.

A recent edition, for example, described the addition of tuxedo rentals and sales to the offerings at Ray’s Florist in the Suffolk Shopping Center and alerted clients to the new location of the Lion and Lioness salon and day spa on Pruden Boulevard.

The Web site can be accessed at www.greatersuffolk.com.