mrpoppinzs
Arena District
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Pickerington_Kyle said:
If there was an Apple Store downtown, I would go to it more than I would in the one in Easton.
I say we just grow a pair and put in a faux one to get the ball rolling.
http://birdabroad.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/are-you-listening-steve-jobs/
cbustransit
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I would caution against build it and they will come big stores. heresthecasey mentioned the case of pittsburgh...in the late 90s, they spent HUGE dollars to bring major retailers downtown: they already had a macys and saks, but spent bucks to bring a brand new lazarus and a lord and taylor...all massive department stores. Today? saks, lazarus and lord and taylor are all closed. Macy's is ONLY open because they own the building and cant sell it. They had FOUR major retailers downtown--a really vibrant downtown with great transit and tons of people--and it didn't work. It may take some time, but I am even more for letting columbus slowly grown into an independent retail destination like the short north. We don't need a macy's downtown to do it. It will just take time.
Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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jackoh said:
1. Those wanting parking on the high street corridor; favoring the accomodation of private car transportation at the expense of public transit. An interesting position for the advocates for urban living.
I don't think anyone around here has called for this. Personally, I'm in favor of adding metered parking in strategic locations on high to encourage a specific type of retail development. This may require the relocation of some bus routes, but not necessarily at the expense of the bus system. Not everyone has a final destination of High Street.
Inversely, I also don't think you'll find many advocates for urban living in favor of removing metered parking in the Short North, as it would largely harm existing retailers in that area, potentially closing them.
A robust and multi-modal transit system still includes cars. Parking meters are much less invasive to the urban environment when compared to flat surface lots. And different types of retail favor meters over paid lots (urban coffee shops for example).
To claim there's a disconnect is false, as this is a much more complex issue than that.
jackoh said:
2. Those asking for more retail choices in the downtown as a solution to a thriving urban core. 20 years ago downtown had plenty of retail, it didn't work and downtown retail died.
The residential base (both in and around Downtown), visitor base, spending habits, retail trends and a dozen other factors have changed between 1992 and 2012. To write today off because of whatever people were thinking two decades ago seems like a pretty simplistic way to look at things.
johnwirtz
Glenview, IL
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jpizzow said:
I think it is very feasible to get at least a couple of the following: men's/women's Express, H&M, Jos. A Bank, an Apple store, Container Store in downtown near the convention center, Arena District, Short North. There is more than enough target market, foot traffic of all kinds and income floating around a 5 mile radius in that rough location for the types of products these businesses sell. Additionally, we are getting new hotel rooms, more residents and over 1000 new parking spaces. Some people may not like the thought of national chains locating in this general area but whether one likes it or not, national chains with known brands create foot traffic. It's that foot traffic that will happen upon other smaller independent stores. Retail feeds retail.
I generally agree with this. The hard thing with retail is that it benefits from aggregation into districts. This is why malls work. This talk of getting one Gap, one Limited, one Marshalls, etc. doesn't make sense to me. One anything isn't going to attract a critical mass of shoppers. Malls actively recruit stores, and a certain mix of stores to provide many shopping options in one place. This is relatively easy because a mall is owned by a single landlord. Coordinating and recruiting businesses into downtown storefronts is much more difficult because every property is owned by someone else. The city can't negotiate rents, occupancy dates, promise renovations, or tell prospective tenants who else has committed to the space next door. Yet some kind of coordinating group that acts like a mall landlord seems like exactly what downtown needs to me.
Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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johnwirtz said:
Coordinating and recruiting businesses into downtown storefronts is much more difficult because every property is owned by someone else. The city can't negotiate rents, occupancy dates, promise renovations, or tell prospective tenants who else has committed to the space next door. Yet some kind of coordinating group that acts like a mall landlord seems like exactly what downtown needs to me.
As Leftovers mentioned, Capital Crossroads has a program that helps with the latter to a certain extent.
As for the ownership issue, Capitol South owns several properties with have multiple retail spaces. I imagine a targeted and specific program could be achieved via the city through their properties.
ZHC
101 East Main Street, Downtown
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jackoh said:
Just calling attention to a couple of disconnects in this conversation2. Those asking for more retail choices in the downtown as a solution to a thriving urban core. 20 years ago downtown had plenty of retail, it didn't work and downtown retail died. Kind of like those who advocate as a solution to our current economic situation cutting taxes, reducing domestic spending, and expanding defense spending. Didn't work in the last decade, why should it work now?
I wouldn't say that's a fair observation.
As my father pointed out in the Dispatch over 20 years ago when they interviewed him in one of their City Center Specials, City Center was constructed in a way that did not help downtown or even connected to downtown. City Center was a self contained destination mall. Consumers drove to the garage, went into the mall die their shopping , got back into their cars and left downtown.
In fact City Center decimated my neighborhood and many others which had several family owned shops and restaurants. Within a couple years of opening most of my neighborhood emptied out.
City Center was never in reality truly "downtown retail" save perhaps for Lazarus which was merged into the mall. It was a suburban mall located downtown.
ZHC
101 East Main Street, Downtown
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Twixlen said:
The Atlantic Cities has a neat piece about downtown shopping -There've been many many CU discussions about this... that one name-brand store to come into to downtown. A destination store, that would encourage additional retail.
that is a neat piece, I could see an area like the Warehouse district being a possible place for someone to try something like that. Hunh I'll definitely keep eye on that Miami experiment
that being said, I don't think the "one brand name store" is the core problem downtown. Or will fix much beyond a block or two.
The main problem(s) as I see it is two fold
- Cost of doing business, downtown is a very expensive (land acquisition and tax wise) and is a heavily regulated place to do business. A lot of the available spaces are not very competitively feasible especially ones designed pre-ADA laws in modern formats for hard and soft lines retailers.
- Customer Access- The overwhelming majority of Columbus shoppers go to their destination by car. Like it or not that's how it works even downtown. That makes accommodating cars a necessity for any Columbus retailer and the urban format unfortunately not very competitive in many retail segments. Given downtown's restrictions on the creation of new parking and just the nature of an urban environment that makes servicing customers pretty difficult downtown for retailers. Further complicating that is that many downtown residents themselves have cars, so there is less pressure/incentive on the downtown consumers that do happen to be here to walk or take mass transit to shop. Meanwhile there is relentless intense pressure to accommodate cars.
So what I see over and over is that retailers figure they can get downtown's business more profitably with less restrictions with less financial risk by setting up shop outside of downtown, sometimes right outside of it.
And I also think it is no accident the Hills market chose the old Wilson's Auto building. I suspect they did so in part because it basically is a more suburban style single story building which has some grandfathered surface parking. A lot by downtown standards . I can't say I know for a fact if that was a consideration or not for Hills, but if so it was a smart move on their part in my opinion.
ZHC
101 East Main Street, Downtown
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rus said:
Think that void is getting filled by Amazon?
I'd say much more so than many might suspect. "Show rooming" has become a matter of life or death for some segments.
I'm hearing through our trade channels of a lot of lobbying by some of the major chains for a national sales tax, pretty much to try to slow Amazon down/reduce their perceived competitive advantage. I expect a lot of pushback from the established brick and mortars the more Amazon grows, the boxes in particular are not going to let Amazon poach more of their sales without a fight.
But yeah, retail demand for store space in every format is decreasing in part due to a meaningful % of retail sales moving online.
johnwirtz
Glenview, IL
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Walker said:
As Leftovers mentioned, Capital Crossroads has a program that helps with the latter to a certain extent.As for the ownership issue, Capitol South owns several properties with have multiple retail spaces. I imagine a targeted and specific program could be achieved via the city through their properties.
They must be having a hard time then.
johnwirtz
Glenview, IL
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ZHC said:
I'd say much more so than many might suspect. "Show rooming" has become a matter of life or death for some segments.I'm hearing through our trade channels of a lot of lobbying by some of the major chains for a national sales tax, pretty much to try to slow Amazon down/reduce their perceived competitive advantage. I expect a lot of pushback from the established brick and mortars the more Amazon grows, the boxes in particular are not going to let Amazon poach more of their sales without a fight.
But yeah, retail demand for store space in every format is decreasing in part due to a meaningful % of retail sales moving online.
Somewhat related; pedestrian counts on Chicago's downtown sidewalks are down during lunch hours in the past couple of decades, even though they're up during rush hours. We assume people who used to go out and walk around during lunch are surfing the Internet instead during lunch. So it would now take a larger employment base to get the same amount of foot traffic for downtown retail. I'm assuming these issues apply to Columbus and other cities as well as Chicago.
Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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ZHC said:
And I also think it is no accident the Hills market chose the old Wilson's Auto building. I suspect they did so in part because it basically is a more suburban style single story building which has some grandfathered surface parking. A lot by downtown standards . I can't say I know for a fact if that was a consideration or not for Hills, but if so it was a smart move on their part in my opinion.
At the CMC luncheon last week that I moderated on the topic of Downtown retail where Jill Moorhead from The Hill's Market was a panelist, she mentioned that there are only 14 dedicated parking spots. That's pretty small for grocery store standards. Even for a 12,000 square foot grocery store.
Hill's recently took a survey of their customer base to find out more about their shopping needs, and she said that (if I recall correctly) around 40% who took the survey said they plan to walk to the store. Another 20% said they'd bike. Not that those people will use those modes every time, nor is it necessarily an accurate representation of their larger customer base (I think she said around 800 people took the survey) but I do think it's significant.
Additionally, The Hill's will offer online ordering for delivery or for curb-side pickup (you don't even have to get out of your car) to help accomodate the lack of parking.
Time will tell to see how it will all work. But I thought it was worthy of mentioning as an example where perhaps the tides are turning compared to what you may have seen with other retailers or heard from other retailer's concerns.
Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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johnwirtz said:
They must be having a hard time then.
The Capital Crossroads program has assisted with several of the new retailers (mostly restaurants) that have opened in the past 2-3 years, and helped other existing stores with renovations. My understanding is that their larger issue is with landlords and building owners that don't want to budge on high rent demands or cooperating on renovations. There's a lot of interest in Downtown of retailers (at least local boutique/independents) but little financial assistance to get these old spaces up to code. There's practically zero "white box" ready-to-lease space in Downtown Columbus.
alexs
Limestone bluffs of the Scioto
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johnwirtz
Glenview, IL
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Walker said:
The Capital Crossroads program has assisted with several of the new retailers (mostly restaurants) that have opened in the past 2-3 years, and helped other existing stores with renovations. My understanding is that their larger issue is with landlords and building owners that don't want to budge on high rent demands or cooperating on renovations. There's a lot of interest in Downtown of retailers (at least local boutique/independents) but little financial assistance to get these old spaces up to code. There's practically zero "white box" ready-to-lease space in Downtown Columbus.
Thanks for the info. I think it makes sense for downtown to focus on unique retailers and restaurants; things that can't be found elsewhere.
cbus11
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I think all eyes are the Hills Downtown Market. It has a lot of advanatages for a downtown shop as has been noted. It also has a customer base within walking distance and a product, groceries, which has been sought downtown for awhile.
Hopefully, the Hills Market will succeed and other retailers will follow.
Twixlen
The Weston District
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Another fabulous Atlantic Cities piece - dogs = vibrancy.
How Dogs Saved a Los Angeles Neighborhood
As a dog lover and owner, and life-long pet-haver, I love, love, love this. It was so frustrating when I rented to find a place that would accept my pets. It's one of the major drivers that caused me to buy - so few places rent to pet people.
Take a walk through the Historic Core district almost any time of the day and formerly deserted sidewalks are now awash with dogs and their owners. While this may seem like a natural outcome for a hotspot with an influx of residents, it’s actually by design, the result of a planned initiative by landlords to attract new renters.In 1999, Los Angeles passed its Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, making it easier and cheaper for real estate developers to convert old offices to new housing. While the ordinance arguably jump-started the revitalization of downtown L.A., a key (though overlooked) element was pet-friendly policies in these newly converted lofts.
Walker
The KLD / Downtown / Gay Street
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alexs said:
Ghosts of Columbus Past, do you remember Kroger trying the Peapod service? Order online for home delivery.
Yeah, I remember that. There was a couple of grocers that attempted delivery during the dot com boom. I think it was too early in 1999-2000 for internet based food ordering.
Hill's has been doing their online ordering from their original location for a little while now. We've only used it twice ourselves, but works pretty seamlessly...
ZHC
101 East Main Street, Downtown
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johnwirtz said:
Somewhat related; pedestrian counts on Chicago's downtown sidewalks are down during lunch hours in the past couple of decades, even though they're up during rush hours. We assume people who used to go out and walk around during lunch are surfing the Internet instead during lunch. So it would now take a larger employment base to get the same amount of foot traffic for downtown retail. I'm assuming these issues apply to Columbus and other cities as well as Chicago.
Hunh I hadn't thought about that as a consequence, but that does make sense.
yeah I agree that's an everywhere evolution, not just Chicago.
In any event, this is only further proof in my mind that residential is what it is going to take drive more retail downtown.
ZHC
101 East Main Street, Downtown
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Walker said:
At the CMC luncheon last week that I moderated on the topic of Downtown retail where Jill Moorhead from The Hill's Market was a panelist, she mentioned that there are only 14 dedicated parking spots. That's pretty small for grocery store standards. Even for a 12,000 square foot grocery store.Hill's recently took a survey of their customer base to find out more about their shopping needs, and she said that (if I recall correctly) around 40% who took the survey said they plan to walk to the store. Another 20% said they'd bike. Not that those people will use those modes every time, nor is it necessarily an accurate representation of their larger customer base (I think she said around 800 people took the survey) but I do think it's significant.
Additionally, The Hill's will offer online ordering for delivery or for curb-side pickup (you don't even have to get out of your car) to help accomodate the lack of parking.
Time will tell to see how it will all work. But I thought it was worthy of mentioning as an example where perhaps the tides are turning compared to what you may have seen with other retailers or heard from other retailer's concerns.
I wish I could have gone to that CMC but I did watch the video you posted.
Just to be clear, what I said about Hills was intended as a compliment of their business acumen not a criticism. I think they are pretty sharp operators and given the competitive reality of retail downtown I think they were wise to site select a downtown location that has that much parking available.
While 14 spaces may not be a lot by grocery standards, it is a lot compared to just about any other similar sized parcel you could get downtown. It is a really rare find.
If people do back up what they say in the survey in terms of how they come to the store(in my experience respondents tend to be your most conscientious and loyal customers and thus surveys such as these tend to overstate habits such as these. ) then that's great for Hills. But if they don't or don't do it as often as they claim they will, then Hills is equipped to handle that as well.
As you mentioned their online ordering and curbside pickup options will likely help as well.
Personally I would be surprised if their foottraffic did skew that hard to pedestrians/bikers at first anyway, given what they sell. I think 25% is more likely than 60% implied by the study, unless they really think prepared foods at lunch is going to be their strongest hours. A big factor is how much pull they will get from CCAD and Columbus State. FWIW what non-car based footrtaffic does come may likely be a significantly smaller average ticket than that of their car customers, just due to how people tend to shop when walking in Columbus(more frequent trips, less stuff per). Just how it seems to work.
No matter what happens I hope they do well, they've made a lot of downtown people very happy by coming in. Everyone is certainly glad to have them :)
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