Shipping Container Pop-ups: Best Practice or Best Forgotten?

Dan McCombie is a Research Associate at Larisa Ortiz Associates

I caught myself typing this into my google machine the other day:

“Are shipping containers still cool?”

This question has been on my mind as of late, given that the phenomenon of turning shipping containers into pop-ups for retail, exhibition space, offices, and even tiny homes, has been going on for quite some time now. Many people are no doubt familiar with the well renowned downtown Container Park in Las Vegas, constructed in 2013 as part of a huge reinvestment package spurred by the relocation of online retailer Zappos to the neighborhood. And I personally remember when back in 2011 my hometown of Christchurch (NZ) had its central city devastated by earthquake, spurring the city to create Re:Start to quickly breathe life back into the CBD. Are people still doing this? Is it still perceived as both a savvy marketing scheme and opportunity to catalyze revitalization? Or is the public starting to experience container-fatigue?

What’s the problem with containers?

Admittedly, there is a part of me that sometimes looks upon containers with disdain simply because they are so ubiquitous now. But I stumbled upon this quote from an article by John King in an article he wrote for SFGATE.com, wherein he waxes on the creation of “Proxy,” another container park constructed in 2011 in the Hayes Valley neighborhood of San Francisco:

“This isn’t about architecture so much as urban place making: you’re less aware of the structures than of the surroundings. The containers aren’t treated as sculptural elements, as is the case recently in other international cities. They’re content to add layers to the landscape, enlarging the Hayes Valley experience without making a fuss.”

Which I interpret to mean: “Calm down. Forget about the medium and consider the effect.”

And rightly so. I actually visited Proxy when I was last in San Francisco, when a couple of friends brought me to the beer garden there (Biergarten). Recalling that visit and doing some background research, I learned that Proxy was exactly as the name describes—a temporary placeholder until more permanent development could take place, much like Re:Start in Christchurch. The site on Octavia Street was originally an underutilized parking lot that the city sought to redevelop for affordable housing. However, the original plan was tabled with the advent of the economic recession. Rather than let the site lay vacant and an eyesore on the neighborhood, the city and the Mayor’s office bid the site out for a temporary and less costly installation, to which the designer/developer/operator Envelope A+D responded with their plan for a “flexible environment of food, art, culture, and retail within renovated shipping containers.” 

Although city codes lacked precedent for a “temporary” retail operation lasting more than 90 days (the project is due to expire in 2020), stakeholders were able to negotiate an agreement such that project became a reality. Now retail tenants include a mix of established brands and start-ups taking their first incremental step towards brick and mortars. In addition to retail offerings, the project hosts film screenings, art installations, and serves as a performance/event space creating a bonafide neighborhood gathering place.   

What have container parks like Proxy meant for retail?

Proxy bucks the trend in retail in the sense that in spite of its positive public reception and the relative success of its tenants, it plans to shutter in a couple of years. Why remove something that seems to be a success? Because it was always designed to be a stop-gap and of course the need to grow the supply of affordable housing in the Bay Area is still an acute need. But the lessons remain. What Proxy did well was create density in a vacant space. It was consciously conceived as a means to revitalize a previously blighted area, a parking lot that had also been the former site of a freeway. There were other things Proxy did well—curating the mix of tenants in a meaningful way and targeting operators that could feasibly make the jump to brick and mortars after a period of incubation. I also appreciate that the designers consciously eschewed the term “pop-up.” In a quote from Douglas Burnham, founder of Envelope A+D:

“We specifically don’t use the word ‘pop-up’ because it doesn’t really mean anything to us anymore…We think that a thoughtful insertion of compelling temporary uses can be an effective strategy to bring vibrancy to languishing parts of the city. There’s nothing trendy or faddish about this.”

Admittedly, one could argue it is a bit faddish to treat “pop-up” as a pejorative term. But I think this gets back to my main takeaway. Before you critique something for its popularity, it’s important to consider if and why it actually has staying power.

So…do containers have staying power?

As far as I’ve been able to tell, the containerization of our lives continues unabated. Large brands like Budlight, DSW, Puma, HBO, and HP are increasingly demanding container pop-ups for experiential retailing strategies while a growing number of companies are supplying both specialized and turnkey options. They range from Co-Working in a Box’s “PopBox”, Britten’s “BoxPop”, and Vacant’s mobile container truck, each providing a range of design and consultative services to help get businesses off the ground and engage customers in places they didn’t expect.

And let’s not miss the fact that a whole segment of companies have an identical model for indoor pop-ups. The shopping mall giant Macerich’s Pop-Up EXP program provides 100-300 SF of space with micro leases, and modular components. The difference here is we’re not talking about containers. Again—this suggests a larger trend with momentum and that the medium (containers) is really beside the point.

What’s on the horizon?

Some forward-thinking folks have gone so far as to envision containers as outparcels–parking lot satellites to larger retailers located inside shopping malls. For example, perhaps a Nordstrom anchoring a mall uses a container in the parking lot as a small fulfillment center so customers have the convenience of picking up their order on the fly without the full commitment of going inside. It’s no stretch of the imagination given the way e-commerce has pushed the industry towards more rapid and flexible retail with just-in-time delivery schedules. And what with autonomous vehicles ahead, these trends will surely continue into the foreseeable future.

Personally, I’m excited to see pop-ups and container villages keep building off of what has worked in the past. Invest Atlanta, the City of Atlanta’s Development Authority, approved $550K in funding to create an “MLK Innovation Village” built out of shipping containers in an empty parking lot adjacent to the H.E. Holmes MARTA station. The village will include an outdoor gathering space, retail, and at least nine offices with the intent that this “semi-temporary” project will be a catalyst for future transit oriented development in the area. It’s the same model as Proxy and Re:Start, but with a creative transit component that could give it possibly massive multiplier effects.

Which is all to say, I think we still have a lot of containers coming our way in the future.

And that’s quite alright with me.

Puma City
 Multiple Global Ports

Re:Start
Christchurch, NZ

Proxy
Hayes Valley neighborhood of SF

Container Park
Downtown Las Vegas 

Parks, Open Space and Retail

Nur is an Associate at Larisa Ortiz Associates

Here in New York we are fortunate to have parks and open spaces all across the city – from the core of Midtown Manhattan to the outer borough neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island and the Bronx. Like shopping malls, these open spaces range in scale from neighborhood parks that primarily serve residents within a four- or five-block radius to destination parks whose trade areas are much greater, attracting 40-60% visitors from outside the local area. In fact, these destination parks often attract tourists from all around the country and the world.

It’s not surprising then that when we take a closer look at the retail mix in and around these open spaces, we find that they’re almost directly correlated to the park type. After all, customers of the park are also customers of retail.

The Neighborhood Park Retail Mix

The neighborhood park’s main ‘customers’, or users, are families with young children, pet owners, high schoolers and young professionals (depending on the neighborhood’s demographics). As such, the retail tenant mix on the periphery of the park features more convenience-related businesses such as grocery stores, bodegas, take-out restaurants, and cafes that meet the day-to-day needs of the surrounding residents.  

Source: ESRI Business Analyst Online 2017; LOA

Sunset Park and Maria Hernandez Park in Brooklyn both have a similar share of businesses (~10%) belonging to the retail category ‘Food and Beverage Stores’ within a 0.25 mile radius. This NAICS category runs the gamut from small delis to full-service grocery stores. On the southwestern corner of Maria Hernandez Park in the neighborhood of Bushwick, for example, sits City Fresh Market. The grocery store measures about 9,000 SF and is complemented by a number of other smaller format grocery stores and specialty food stores such as Foster Sundry and La Orquidea – a specialty grocer and butcher shop and a tienda selling authentic Mexican and Hispanic produce.

Other than grocers, the local kiosks that are set up in these neighborhood parks also offer snacks like ice-cream and grilled corn for the kids in the neighborhood.

The Destination Park Retail Mix

The customers, or users, of destination parks however are very different, resulting in a very different retail mix around these open spaces. Central Park, Washington Square Park, Union Square Park, and the High Line are some of the destination parks we have here in the city. Since its opening in 2009, the High Line has experienced rapidly climbing visitor numbers year-on-year with over 7.6 million visitors estimated in the year 2015. Of this, 32% of visitors were from outside a 45 mile radius of NYC and an additional 28% of visitors were from outside the US.

The same trend in users can be observed with Central Park.  In 2011, it was reported that Central Park received between 37-38 million visitors (this has climbed to 42 million in 2016!) and of that number, 12% were from outside NYC and the greater NY Metropolitan area and an additional 16% of visitors were from outside the US.

The spillover of millions of national and international visitors have therefore drawn a wider mix of retail to the immediate vicinity of these destination parks that cater specifically to tourists who are seeking a uniquely ‘New York experience’. When compared with the retail mix around neighborhood parks, the destination parks have far greater shares of retailers selling miscellaneous items (including book stores, souvenir/gift stores), clothing and accessories, and sporting goods/ hobby merchandise. Even retail kiosks within the park and along the periphery of the park offer miscellaneous items such as books or souvenir t-shirts and tote bags.

Strand Bookstore, an iconic 86-year old independent bookstore in NYC, operates a kiosk just outside Central Park on the corner of 60^th St and 5^th Avenue. The kiosk not only curates its merchandise to offer books and materials related to the history of New York City and Central Park, it is also a piece of NYC’s cultural history itself. The Strand is the only surviving retailer of Fourth Avenue’s historic ‘Book Row’ shops from the 1890s to 1960s and has seen a number of artists amongst its employees including Patti Smith. The book kiosk by Central Park indeed offers tourists a flavor of old New York.

Meanwhile, at The High Line, you can find a kiosk in the park selling exclusive High Line merchandise with everything from apparel and accessories, to placemats, water bottles, coloring books, and tea towels. These items are all uniquely designed for the High Line and go towards supporting the park’s operations and programs.  

While we must acknowledge that there are still residents in the immediate vicinity of these destination parks, the share of convenience-related businesses serving them is much smaller compared to that near neighborhood parks. For example, within 0.25 mile of the High Line park at 14^th Street, only 2.76% of businesses are food and beverage stores and within 0.25 mile of the East 59^th Street entrance of Central Park, an even smaller share of 0.5% of businesses are food and beverage/grocery stores. Residents are therefore likely getting groceries and convenience goods 0.25 mile in the other direction, away from the destination park.

Food, drinking, and the outdoors

Source: ESRI Business Analyst Online 2017; LOA

In comparing the retail mix across both neighborhood parks and destination parks, however, one retail category maintained a constantly high share of businesses within 0.25 mile – food services and drinking places. From McGolrick Park to Washington Square Park, food services and drinking places including restaurants and bars share between 10-18% of the total retail mix within 0.25 mile radius.

The High Line Summer Terroir Pop-Up. Photo: The High Line

In many instances, these restaurants and bars are located in the parks themselves, have direct views into the parks, or are easy to take out and consume in the park. Connecting the outdoors to food and drinking, as is possible near neighborhood and destination parks, can be a winning formula for many restaurants and bars. In the restaurant industry, anecdotal accounts from restaurateurs report elevated dining experiences amongst customers by offering al fresco seating options, resulting in increased sales.

The Synergy between Retail and Parks

Even with non-food service and drinking businesses, the connection to the park and the outdoors can be a winning formula to driving greater traffic into stores. One example is Union Square Park, which hosts fitness events outside in the warm months to drive traffic to both the park and its neighboring businesses. Sponsored by and organized with local athletic apparel stores and yoga studios and gyms, the SweatFest event illustrates the possible synergies between a park and local businesses.  

Overall, it appears that parks can make great co-tenants of certain types of retail because they increase dwell time in the neighborhood or area, and can increase potential sales. However, the synergy works the other way too.

Union Square Winter Market. Photo: TimeOut NY

Retail can prove beneficial to parks by activating them in the colder months. Many destination parks in NYC that see drastic drops in visitor numbers in the Winter have introduced outdoor holiday markets with retail to drive foot traffic into the parks. Parks like Bryant Park, Union Square Park and even Central Park (at its Columbus Circle entrance) are opening their arms to retail as they find ways to maintain visitation throughout the cold months.

Finally, retail in and around parks may also have positive impacts on park safety at night. After dusk, many parks – neighborhood and destination – get dark and quiet. Having retail that opens later into the evening along the periphery of parks, and facing them, ensures that lights stay on later in the area and potentially improving the perception of safety for those walking at night.

Planning cohesively for parks and retail

Given that both parks and retail can stand to gain from being closely situated to each other, it’s important that we plan for or make it viable for the two to co-exist. This might mean ensuring that zoning near and around parks allows for various types of retail businesses and outdoor seating options to flourish or it might even mean planning for Park Concessions areas and ensuring that the application process is easy to navigate and not costly (Strand Bookstore only pays around $46,305 annually to the Parks Department for its Central Park kiosk).   

Sure the tenant mix may differ between park types, however, the park should be used creatively as an extension of the retail and vice versa.

Best Practice: Shrinking Brick-and-Mortars and DGX

Dan McCombie is a Research Associate at Larisa Ortiz Associates

For our recent blog post on 2018 retail trends, number seven on our list was the phenomenon of shrinking retail footprints and the opportunities they provide for both retailers and for downtowns. I thought it helpful to highlight one such retailer, perhaps an unexpected one, who has adopted this strategy. Who is it?

Dollar General. (Really?)

Really. (Tell me more!)

Ok! 

In January of 2017, Dollar General announced the opening of its new urban format store entitled Dollar General Express (or DGX) in Nashville Tennessee, just a ways south of the company's base of operations in Goodlettsville. It differed largely from existing stores in that it occupied a paltry 3,400 SF compared to traditional store sizes of 7,300 SF, presenting a small, clean, modern and sleek aesthetic. Its usual 10,000-12,000 SKUs were traded in for a more limited assortment of grocery, pet supply, snacks, paper products, and home cleaning supplies, but complemented with a coffee bar, refrigerated grab-n-go food offerings, an expanded health and beauty section, and a “carefully-edited assortment of home, electronics and seasonal offerings.”[1]

What explained the reasoning behind the new DGX? Dollar General representatives explained what we all already know, that the retail business is changing and shopping is increasingly moving online. The new DGX was felt to be a way to anchor their brand more in their brick-and-mortars by reaching a new audience of urban and Millennial-aged shoppers—thus the reason for choosing Nashville as their first location. The Nashville metropolitan area is expected to reach a population of 2M by the year 2020, signaling a trend of urbanization that is not likely to abate anytime soon. A quick look in ESRI Business Analyst found that within a fifteen minute walk shed of the store’s location, over 40 percent of the population was classified in the “Dorms to Diplomas” tapestry segment, an inherently budget-conscious demographic of college students with low rates of car ownership. An additional 38 percent of residents were characterized as “Metro Renters,” college-educated Millennial 30-somethings with a preference for single household urban living. Dollar General seems to be gambling big on these cohorts by opening its second DGX location in Raleigh, North Carolina, within the famed Research Triangle region.

What DGX is seeking to do goes beyond what was discussed in our 2018 trends blog post, where we pointed to stores like City Target and Neighborhood Nordstrom in the general merchandise category. These retailers are shrinking store sizes and reducing inventories in order to focus on more experiential components—in essence responding to a market correction that saw an oversupply in retail space across the country. But Dollar General is really continuing a retail strategy that has historically served them well. They have always been a small format chain compared to their big-box competitors. With a smaller footprint, they’ve been able to locate closer to budget-minded shoppers, competing on convenience and access, such that they claim they currently serve 75% of the US population. This strategy has fueled their consistent growth with Q4 2017 sales rising at the fastest pace seen in the past three years.  

What is different is that the Dollar General site selection strategy has grown from a focus solely on the rural customer to include the urban. In short, Dollar General has not changed their value proposition, which is providing affordable and accessible convenience goods. What they have changed is their focus on primarily rural demographics to now include a growing urban demographic. This is not to say they’ve been absent from urban areas until now, but the new DGX stores can be shoehorned into smaller spaces in denser environments in a way they haven’t been able to prior. That has tremendous implications for addressing vacant spaces, improving tenant mix, and creating engaging downtown environments.     

Source: dollargeneral.com

---

[1] https://newscenter.dollargeneral.com/our-story/blog-posts/dollar-general-unveils-new-dgx-concept.htm

The Age of the Selfie

Greetings from Austin Mural, TX. Photo: Yelp

Nur Asri is an Associate at Larisa Ortiz Associates.

Whether we care to admit or not, we’ve all taken one or been forced to take one. I'm talking about selfies. Selfies are digital self-portraits that began to really take off when smart phones became equipped with the forward-facing camera. The photos themselves haven’t radically changed retail or downtowns – believe me, people were taking self-portraits even when they had film cameras. However, when the digital self-portraits are uploaded to social media platforms and tagged and shared by users across the world, that’s when it starts to have an impact on the brand and identity of a retailer or an entire downtown.

The selfie is now a common tool that people – young and old – use to share their individual experiences with others and to self-brand. The marketing power of the selfie cannot be understated. A HTC survey in 2013 of more than 2,000 mobile phone users in the UK found that about 51% of the UK had taken a selfie, creating about 35 million photos every month. Although a greater share of those aged 18-24 had taken a selfie, almost a third of those aged 65 and older had also taken one, indicating that the selfie can work on a wide range of customer segments.

Just to understand the magnitude of selfie-taking, we took a look at the number of selfies taken on Instagram.

Sure, selfies are often criticized for being associated with vanity or narcissism but selfies are often the first and last step a customer takes in their purchasing journey. Selfies provide inspiration for those seeking to make purchases and selfies provide validation for those who have already bought products – it’s a near instant feedback loop for customers. Selfies have indeed increased sharing of product information and resulted in more educated and conscious consumers. Today, customers search for authentic peer recommendations for a range of products and even for travel decisions so information shared on social media has in many ways surpassed the influence of magazines and newspapers. A 2016 TopDeck Travel Survey in 2016 found that in choosing where to travel, 76% of Millennials surveyed said that friends’ recommendations…and social media came far ahead of travel-agent advice.

How are retailers making use of selfies?

Retailers in a wide range of categories have used selfies as a leverage to raise brand and product awareness, and also boost in-store traffic.

1. Drug stores/ Beauty

Interactive mirrors placed in UK drug store, Superdrug Beauty Studio, allow customers to experiment with hair colors virtually and take selfies after getting hair or make-up done. This helps the store’s customers to share the quality of services being offered in-store while also providing free marketing. To make the sharing of the selfie easier, the store features iPads that enable customers to send the selfie to Facebook or Twitter with the official campaign hashtag, #TreatYourSelfie.

2. Apparel

Many apparel stores from Victoria’s Secret to French Connection and Ted Baker have used selfies as part of their marketing campaigns. These stores encourage shoppers to take photos in-store by creating a perfect backdrop or setting for taking selfies. These include special installations, interactive selfie booths and attractive storefront displays. The stores then encourage shoppers to share the selfies on their personal Twitter and Instagram profiles using official campaign hashtags by providing incentives like free gifts for anyone that uploads the photo to social media or by displaying the selfies on a public screen or storefront window.

By displaying the selfies publicly, passersby became very engaged with the store. They were able to vote for favorite selfies using hand sensors and were then more likely to walk into the store.  

3. Food

Even with food, selfies can happen. The phenomenon known as foodstagramming is the act of taking photos of one’s food and posting them on social media. Restaurants are certainly taking advantage of it because it can be free advertising (depending on the photographer’s comments!).

How can downtowns use selfies?

Speaking of food, this week is Restaurant Week across New York City and sure enough many business improvement districts are using food selfies as a way to raise awareness of the district events and drive greater traffic to the restaurants in these areas post-event. Grand Street BID in Brooklyn, for example, is offering foodstagrammers a chance to win $50 to their favorite Grand Street Restaurant if they upload a picture of their Restaurant Week meal with the hashtag #DineOnGrand and tag the BID in the photos.  

Beyond food selfies, commercial districts can also use iconic art and signage and interactive sculptures to encourage selfies by visitors and to reinforce their identities. In the past, we’ve featured the I Amsterdam sign as one example of a way that signage can drive popular images posted on social media. Many other downtowns have driven high visitation rates with iconic selfie spots. Here are some examples:

In Austin, murals across the city have become destinations in themselves and visitors are taking selfies in front of them and sharing images on social media with hashtags #Austin #ATX

In San Diego, the gateway signage to the Gaslamp Quarter has also become very iconic as a selfie spot for visitors to the area.

Creating a selfie moment in your downtown, like in a retail store, can do wonders in attracting more visitors and customers. The rapid sharing and outsourcing of opinions amongst consumers today can either make or break your downtown so make sure you provide positive moments for visitors to snap a quick and pretty selfie.

How to create a successful selfie moment downtown

First, remember to create a backdrop for the selfie to happen. This means good lighting, mirrors and attractive or significant art. Holiday lighting displays are often great backdrops, as are large sculptures, murals and gateway signs. The backdrop should also reflect the identity and brand of the downtown in order for the retweets and sharing of social media posts to be fully effective in driving interest and traffic to your downtown.

Second, make uploading the selfie easy. While stores and retailers can easily provide ipads and devices to customers, downtowns should instead think about providing free public wifi. From personal experience, I’m always more likely to upload and share content when I can easily get online. If I’m not able to instantly upload images after taking them, I’m likely to forget doing so later.

Third, provide incentives for visitors to take the selfies. With some visitors, you’ll need to nudge. Offer a chance to win a shopping trip or discounts at downtown stores if someone takes a selfie in the area and uploads it to social media. Featuring selfies taken downtown on outdoor advertisements and interactive platforms may also nudge some visitors to take photos. It’s always fun to see a photo you’ve taken up on a public platform!

Finally, make sure you aggregate the selfies and build your downtown brand through a common hashtag or downtown social media account that visitors can tag in their posts. This can help you drive traffic to your downtown website or even directly downtown! Make sure everyone on social media ‘liking’ or ‘retweeting’ posts is able to connect the selfie to your downtown.

The obscure zoning regulations that might be undermining your downtown revival

We have all heard the news. Retailers are increasingly experimenting with new business formats that blur the lines between uses that have never previously existed side by side. Things like education/instruction, production and retail now regularly occur in the same facility, making it difficult for planners to categorize these uses and creating the need for businesses to apply for expensive discretionary zoning actions for combinations that planners never dreamed of decades ago. By making it harder and more costly for businesses, particularly smaller, mom-and-pop (and often less capitalized) to open, cities are diminishing their competitive advantages and making it more likely that these businesses will locate elsewhere. As retail footprints shrink, a trend unlikely to change in the near future, successful commercial districts will be those that aggregate a diverse, robust set of uses in one place. Cities can't afford to lose interesting and unique retailers if they want to remain relevant to shoppers who can easily purchase the same goods on-line.

Table of Uses and Use Group Designations
Most cities have tables or use group charts that define, with great precision, the kinds of businesses that are allowed or restricted in certain areas. This made sense when noxious manufacturing uses were not anything you wanted around residential communities, but we have come a long way since then. Consider "Maker Spaces" that allow people to collaborate, build and create products. Or consider the new Nike store along Broadway in Soho. The entire first floor is dedicated to building your own pair of sneakers. Zoning restrictions in some communities might have prevent one or both of these concepts - yet these are precisely the kind of uses that downtown managers are looking to as they try to fill vacant spaces.

The Nike Store along Broadway in Soho dedicates the entire
first floor to the production
of sneakers. Would this use be allowed in your downtown?

Other examples include things like gyms, yoga studios and artisan specialty food manufacturing and breweries, all downtown friendly uses that are blurring the line between retail, service and manufacturing and frankly causing havoc in the zoning world. This is because most zoning codes do not often recognize the nuances inherent in these business models and as a result businesses are often required to enter expensive legal processes for permitting their businesses.

Here are a few concrete examples from our work that highlight the challenges...

Gyms and Spas
Times Square in the 1970's was not a place for the weak of heart. The problem, according to many, included the many adult massage parlors that operated with impunity. To fix it, the City amended the Zoning Resolution to prohibit "Physical Culture Establishments" and to require that these businesses obtain special permits to operate. Many parlors operating as gyms or health spas were closed and many credit the permit process with speeding up improvements to Times Square.

Fast forward forty years and the well intention special permit now exists in an environment in which healthy living is an important part of the urban lifestyle. Uses that we now consider normal parts of our everyday lives, including gyms, spas, martial arts schools and yes, legitimate massage studios, must apply for a Physical Culture Establishment permit that takes many months and according to Crain's New York Business cost $50,000 or more in fees and legal costs. While the code was later amended to allow as-of-right, art, music, dance or theatrical uses under 1,500 sf, this still leaves alot of legitimate uses open to the vagaries of the discretionary permitting process.

It should also be noted that as brick-and-mortar retail shrinks its footprint, these kinds businesses are precisely the kinds of uses filling many of the vacant spaces left behind. Yet expensive roadblocks like these make it harder for property owners to fill vacancies. Instead the spaces lie fallow.

While your downtown may not have a permit restricting gyms, you may have other impediments to retail businesses that are interested in locating downtown but may be scared away by permitting or restrictions that will cost them significant time and money.

Breweries, Bakeries and Furniture Makers
Another area of contention are retailers that do light manufacturing of some kind on-site. One of the most common is the brewery. More and more downtown's are seeing breweries as a real opportunity for downtown revitalization. We recently did some work in Morganton, NC, where no less than three popular breweries have set the stage for a full-scale downtown revival.

Brown Mountain Bottleworks
is located in a historic building in
Morgtontown, NC.

However many downtown zoning codes do not allow for this use. This recently happened in the City of New Rochelle, NY.  According to a local councilman, in the past year alone at least three breweries considered opening locations in downtown and all have chosen other locations. Under the prevailing zoning at the time, breweries were relegated to certain industrial zones or in new buildings, which effectively prevented them from locating downtown, which is where many want to be. To remedy the situation, the City Council amended the zoning code to ease regulations for breweries and other artisan shops that also include elements of manufacturing, including jewelers, bakers, furniture makers and coffee roasters.

Educational Establishments
Many downtowns thrive off of the presence of educational institutions that attract students. "Educational" designations can increasingly be applied to retailers who also offer instruction in their stores. In fact, some storefronts are predominantly places for classes that support minor accessory retail, rather than the other way around. In Watkins Glen, NY where we are working on the New York State Downtown Revitalization Initiative, a collective of 19 local knitters purchased a downtown business whose owner was retiring and turned it into Fiber Arts in the Glen, a gathering space for knitting groups, classes, and to a lesser extent the purchase of yarn. In fact, someone who enters the store is often surprised to find that many of the lovely knitted goods are not for sale, they are simply samples to show off the yarn that is being sold.

In some places this is precisely this kind of use that triggers changes parking requirements. Practice Space, a small business in Inman Square found this out the hard way. During our work with the City of Cambridge, MA, we found that when an existing use changes and the new use is thought to increase the intensity of use, additional parking is sometimes required. Practice Space could function in its location as a retail establishment, but when they added classes they quickly found that their location in an older building along a traditional commercial corridor offered limited to no opportunities to add off-street parking. This kind of parking requirement assumes a suburban context and therefore it can effectively kill the kind of new retail concept that many retailers are exploring.

As on-line retail increasingly results in stiff competition for customer dollars, our responsibility to downtown is to make sure that zoning codes and regulations do not stand in the way of innovative retail concepts that will ensure businesses survive and thrive during these challenging times.