Be An Opportunity, Not A Risk

Posted by Retail Attractions Blog on June 7, 2016 in Blog | No Comments

Investing in retail development can be a risky proposition for a developer. If the deal succeeds, they’ve improved their bottom line and increased their customer base and market appeal. But if the deal falls through, they’ve lost a significant amount of money and time. When you’re marketing your community for retail development, you need to present developing in your location as an opportunity, not a risk. The more you understand a developer’s needs, streamline the building process, and commit being a supportive partner, the more likely retail development will be an all-around success.

Understand Developer’s Risks

Uncertainty is one of the key things that can turn a developer away from working with a community. Even if your community offers a good location that the developer is interested in, a high enough level of risk and uncertainty can still scare them away. Put yourself in the developer’s shoes. Would you invest in a community if you’re not certain it will support your retail development efforts or if the permits process sounds excessively confusing? Probably not – you’d look for a different location where you think the development deal would proceed more smoothly.

Minimize Uncertainty

Reducing the level of uncertainty a developer sees coming into your community can be a daunting prospect, especially if your community doesn’t have a history of negotiating retail development deals. Retail Attractions can help you understand what developers are looking for and provide guidance on making your community more attractive. You can start by streamlining the permit approval and document review processes before you even start talking with developers. The more simple and easy to understand your approval process, the more attractive working with your community will be. You can also assemble suitable sites for retail development and get infrastructure in place for your future partners.

Balance Community Interests

Another thing retail developers are looking for is support. They want to know the community leaders will be on their side if disputes arise regarding the new development project. Opposition to new development is fairly common, and you need to be ready to speak up and support your partner. That said, minimizing the risks and uncertainty for potential business partners shouldn’t mean sacrificing your community’s interests. You want to support your development partners and be honest with them, while still making sure the project benefits your community. One key to this is open and honest communication. Be up-front about what you will and will not do in this partnership, honor your commitments, and don’t surprise your partner with hidden costs and fees. Want help navigating the tricky world of retail development partnerships? Contact Retail Attractions today to learn more about how we will tailor our consulting process to your community’s individual needs and help you attract just the right developer for your project.

Create A Shared Vision Before Entering Partnerships

Posted by Retail Attractions Blog on May 12, 2016 in Blog | No Comments

Vision is the starting point for all successful projects. When you’re developing a vision that will carry your community into a public/private partnership to support retail development and economic growth, it’s essential that the vision is shared. Investors don’t want to partner with a community that can’t agree on their goals.

If your community can’t generate a cohesive vision before heading into public/private partnerships, then there’s a good chance your retail development goals are doomed to failure. Recognizing this gives you an opportunity to impress potential partners by creating a shared vision from the very beginning of your city’s plans for growth and expansion.

Include Everyone

Ideally, your vision will involve everyone who has a stake in the positive outcome of this potential partnership. This includes residents, property owners, homeowners associations, media outlets, colleges, hospitals, churches, and other stakeholders.

Make sure you don’t leave out people and groups that are initially opposed to the community’s proposed vision. Building consensus and addressing concerns is a key step in the process of vision-building if that vision is to be shared by the entire community.

Use Media

Get the media on your side early in the vision-building process. An alliance with local media outlets makes it easier to get your message out and cultivate transparency during the planning stages. Media will continue to play a key role in publicizing the vision and keeping it fresh in people’s minds after your community has decided on a final version of your vision plan.

Future Planning

City visions often include long-term plans that can span several local political administrations. This means that establishing a collective vision and creating community buy-in for the project is essential for sustaining the vision long-term.

As your community develops a shared vision, remember to keep the practical side of things in mind. A vision by itself isn’t enough – you also need a plan for implementing your vision. This is where you can really start focusing on what your community hopes to get out of a public/private partnership and what you can offer your investors.

Provide Clarity

Use public hearings, news releases, visioning exercises and other tools to keep stakeholder and area residents in the loop about the vision you’re developing. Make sure you specify the scale of projects included in the vision and let people know exactly what’s going to happen. A shared vision will start to collapse if people feel blindsided or misinformed.

Retail Attractions can assist with generating an honest assessment of your city’s strengths and weaknesses. We know what investors are looking for and can help you with demographic analysis and strategic planning you’ll need to create an implementable vision before entering into a partnership to foster economic development.

Preparing for Public/Private Partnerships

Posted by Retail Attractions Blog on April 6, 2016 in Blog | 1 Comment

Using public/private partnerships for urban economic development is a growing trend in the United States. In many cases, partnering with the private sector is required for cities to pay the cost of building public infrastructure, especially when that infrastructure is essential to a retail deal. If your community is looking to set-up a public/private partnership to fund new growth, there are a few key steps to take before you even start talking with potential investors.

Early Vision

Start involving your community and resolve conflicts within local government before making contact with developers and investors. Having a comprehensive plan for development that everyone can agree on makes a public/private partnership easier to create and maintain.

If you know what your community wants to get out of the partnership and what you can offer, it saves time in negotiation and lets private investors know you’re serious about investing effort into the partnership. Retail Attractions can help with this type of strategic planning by reviewing your work and conducting visioning workshops with the city.

Ready For Development

Have the land ready and legislation in place for retail development before seeking private partners. Investors don’t want to start negotiations with your community only to find that they don’t yet have access to the land you intend to develop. Developers are more likely to invest in a community that makes things as easy as possible for them. With that in mind, try to streamline building codes and regulations as much as possible before investors arrive.

Identify Goals and Resources

Investors will want to see your community’s vision for the partnership presented clearly in verbal, written and graphic form so they can see what you have in mind and how prepared you are to get the project underway. Share your goals with potential investors and let them know what resources are at their disposal.

You’ll also need to consider what kind of incentives you can offer potential investors. Most retail growth happening in a local setting involves some type of incentive so it’s not something you can afford to overlook.

Evaluate Funds

As a community, you need to know where the funds are going to come from to hold up the public half of a public/private partnership. Public/private partnerships should result in revenue that your community can’t create on its own, but in the initial stages imagination and forward-thinking will have to come into play as you try to come up with needed funds. Explore both public and nonprofit sector funding sources such as development grants, transportation funds, local revolving loans, and tax increment financing tools.

Expert Negotiation

It’s easiest to work with potential investors if your city creates, or already has, an entity to handle the partnership, such as a redevelopment authority or quasi-governmental agency. What’s most important is that the public party contacting investors has the skills and experience necessary to handle the negotiation.

This is a key area where Retail Attractions can help in the initial planning. While your community might not have much experience negotiating public/private partnerships, we can fill that void. Retail Attractions has extensive experience working with communities to create public/private partnerships that benefit both the public and private sides of the partnership. Contact us today to get started.

Understanding Key Players in Public/Private Partnerships

Posted by Retail Attractions Blog on March 14, 2016 in Blog | No Comments

Public/private partnerships develop much more smoothly if all parties are committed to working with each other. A solid partnership starts with an understanding of the background, goals, motives, and needs of each partner. Without this, you can’t build trust and there’s a good chance the deal will fall-through in planning stages.

The Public Partner

As the public partner, city government is responsible for assessing the project’s public purpose, incentivizing the project, and getting needed approval. The government typically acquires land, prepares the project site, builds infrastructure, and supplies public facilities needed for the new project. It’s the public partner’s job gets the project approved on a state and federal level as well as locally with zoning commissions, city officials, etc.

Government also brings incentives to the bargaining table. They can write down costs, expedite permit processing, waive fees, and offer tax abatement. In a partnership, the government needs to recognize the need for flexibility and compromise. Government should also understand that their private partner needs a positive bottom line and work to help them achieve that goal.

The Private Partner

As the private partner, for-profit interests are responsible for project design, construction and operation, and a large part of the marketing. The private partner also provides part of the funding and is in charge of development. They’re expected to be the experts in developing the site and turning it to a profit.

Private partners should understand that government often moves slowly and is not always profit driven. Since the government deals with broader constituencies and operates with long-term goals, it’s helpful if private partners are able to assist with marketing the project to the community and encourage local support.

Local Interests

Nonprofits in the local area often play a key role in public/private partnerships. Neighborhood organizations, churches, foundations, and community development corporations have access to funding sources that are unavailable to the public and private sector interests. If they’re interested in community development projects, they often contribute to the financial package.

For the project to succeed all stakeholders, including private citizens, must feel that their concerns are heard and that they’re able to influence the project. Keeping in touch with stakeholders lets both public and private partners know what the community is looking for in a development project and alerts the partners to any objections the project is raising. Though not all objections can be addressed, maintaining transparency and accepting input creates an atmosphere of trust and acceptance for the project.

A Consultant’s Role

Trying to juggle so many different interests can be overwhelming without professional help to facilitate the negotiations. At Retail Attractions, we have extensive experience working with both public and private interests to negotiate the best possible partnerships for all parties involved. We’ll help you develop a working relationship with your partners and draw-up a mutually-advantageous partnership agreement. Contact us today for more information.

Building Interest in Retail Development (Part 1)

Posted by Rickey Hayes on October 28, 2015 in Blog | 2 Comments

Retailers want to invest in locations where there’s demand for what they supply. To attract large retailers to your city, you have to build interest in retail development by letting them know your city has what they’re looking for. Retail Attractions is uniquely qualified to help with this task. We have years of experience assessing what you have to offer, and we know exactly how to market your community to the retail world.

Know Your Demographics

Before you can invite large retailers to build in your city, you must be able to offer them good reasons to invest in your community. Retailers want to see demographics for your city presented in a reliable, professional format so they can decide whether or not your city is worth their investment. They don’t want to lose money on a project any more than you do.

Retail Attractions offers Demographic Data and Market Analysis services to help you supply this demand. We know what retailers are looking for, and we’ll help you present your city demographics in a way that lets retailers know you’re serious about working with them. Retailers will appreciate that you were able to supply reliable demographics compiled by a third party, and it will make them more likely to consider investing in your city.

Show There’s Demand

Sometimes office and housing growth in developing towns or up-and-coming suburbs moves faster than retailers can develop the area. This isn’t just a challenge that affects small cities – larger areas like McKinney and Frisco, Texas, can also struggle with retail development lagging behind population growth. For quickly developing urban areas, you want to attract retail investors as soon as possible, and that’s where Retail Attractions can help.

To attract larger retailers to your city, they need to know there’s demand for their services. Retail Attractions can assist with compiling Opportunity Gap Analysis to show retailers that your city is a good location for their next development. If you can show that the market isn’t oversaturated, retailers are more likely to invest in your city.

Build Relationships

Good business is built on good relationships. If your city doesn’t already have contacts with retail developers, it can be hard to “get your foot in the door” on your own. Preexisting relationships with developers, and with the retail businesses they’ll bring in, is critical for starting the recruitment process.

Here’s another area where Retail Attractions can help. Founder Rickey Hayes already has a strong network of contacts, and he’ll introduce your city officials to investors, builders and business leaders. This helps with attracting retailers to your city now, and also makes it easier for your community to market itself in the future.

What kind of city are you?

Posted by Rickey Hayes on September 18, 2013 in Blog | No Comments

Written by
Rickey Hayes
Retail Attractions, LLC

One of the most exciting things we do in the day to day grind is meet new people in our client communities. I have said both publicly and privately that every city in the country needs to hire our firm because we bring a broad spectrum of change to our client communities. Although our work is centered on identifying a community’s retail potential and then promoting that community to our network of retail and restaurant contacts, the real benefit of our work is helping a city improve its overall quality of life at tangible levels. Many cities are stuck in a rut of decaying infrastructure, dilapidating buildings, and a depressing outlook for future change. It doesn’t have to be that way.
In working with cities across the country, we have seen that there are basically four types of cities:

• “Yes! cities” who have a can do attitude and figure out ways to get deals done and effect positive change. These cities have vision, build consensus, and refuse to stay the way they are.
• “No! cities” who don’t want more growth or change because they don’t want to provide the additional services or endure the inevitable tension that comes with growth and change.
• “Who Cares! cities” who think if growth comes that’s great, but if it doesn’t come, that’s fine too. They aren’t going to work for it because they don’t think it is worth the effort. (What a tragic outlook to have when there is such potential for every community!)
• “No! cities that could be Yes! cities” who want to change their paths but just need the right kind of leadership, vision, and passion to get them there.

I assure you that the community you live in falls into one of these four categories, and it’s normally pretty obvious where you fall. Can you change the direction your community is heading? Absolutely! Even if you are in a Yes! City and headed the right direction, you can always benefit from professional assistance. Let Retail Attractions help. Visit www.retailattractions.com to learn more. We are ready to get to work for you and make sure you are portraying a Yes! City mentality.

Focusing on the Right Things

Posted by Rickey Hayes on April 26, 2012 in Blog | No Comments

Written by
Rickey Hayes
Retail Attractions, LLC

Communities around this country are doing everything they can to position themselves ahead of the pack in their economic development efforts. It is very common for a city to create and share marketing “propaganda” touting the many reasons why their particular community is the best place in the free world for investment. We are not saying this isn’t an important element, but there is a problem with relying on this approach. Our firm has heard from those receiving these materials. In many cases they don’t even take the time to look at them, no matter how glossy, slick, or gaudy they may be. What retailers are looking for in a city is the answer to one simple question: “Will our company make a profit in this market?” If the answer to that question is yes, then the follow-up question is: “How efficiently can we get open and get our goods to market?”

While it is important for you to have accurate, current data on your market for you to execute an educated and informed development effort, you need to know that retailers and restaurants will come armed with their own data. They are experts at researching and analyzing markets, and having demographics that meet their requirements is only the first step. What they are looking for in their next site is a community willing to partner with them and help to ensure a good return on their investment. To show retailers you are ready to form partnerships, a city needs to take action internally as well as externally.

Externally, cities need to hire professionals to recruit new investment. The retail world is a tight knit community, and you need someone who is known and respected within the development arena. We have often been surprised at how quickly news and reputations can pass through the retail community. Having an advocate for your community within this world is a necessity. Internally, communities need to focus on making the development process as seamless and painless as possible by eliminating the obstacles. The regulatory environment in a city can quickly become a quagmire of bureaucratic red tape, delays, fees, and any number of other nightmares for the development community. The most troubling thing to me about this is that most cities don’t have the slightest clue that they have a problem in this area. Streamlining the development process should be at the forefront of concerns for any team of progressive city administrators.

Cities should treat retailers and developers like they were welcomed customers. I’m not talking about loosening development standards and lowering expectations. I’m talking about finding creative ways to partner with the private sector. This partnership will help to improve quality of life for your citizens, create sales tax revenue for your city budgets, and stop retail leakage caused by your citizens leaving town to purchase goods and services that they would love to buy at home.

Call us. We can help.