Center to Assist Businesses Opens

Created to improve existing businesses and encourage new ones to open up in the Harbor area, a business assistance center opened Thursday in San Pedro.

The Harbor Area Business Assistance Center officially opened its doors with plans to attract new businesses to the vacant storefronts, but it will also provide guidance to existing businesses.

The center will offer low-cost workshops on “How to Finance a Small Business” and “How to Manage Your Own Business,” in addition to giving assistance in areas such as licensing, marketing consultations, business law and accounting. The center is available to businesses in San Pedro, Wilmington, Harbor City and Harbor Gateway.

“If you don’t know where you are going, you might not get there,” said Phil Borden, executive director of California American Woman’s Economic Development Corp., which spearheaded the effort to open the center. “Today we know where we are going and we know what we want for the future and San Pedro.”

The center, funded by the city of Los Angeles Community Development Department, is part of a network of five nonprofit centers that have already opened in East Los Angeles, South-Central, downtown Los Angeles and Pacoima.