Why is retail important to building strong communities?

Nur is an associate at Larisa Ortiz Associates

Whole Foods Market covers over 428,000SF of ground floor 

retail space in St Paul, MN.

Our work at LOA often entails diagnosing problems facing neighborhood retail corridors and offering recommendations and actions to take to revitalize these areas. More often than not, these retail corridors were once vibrant commercial districts that fell into decline following demographic shifts. This, as we all know, was a result of the flight that took place in the 60s and 70s as many middle to higher income families left urban neighborhoods for suburban homes. This shift led to urban neighborhoods falling into decay with increasing pockets of disinvestment and retail stores closing from the lack of residential and worker spending. Most recently, we have seen the trend impacting South Fourth in Mount Vernon, NY where retailers are struggling to attract local customers with poor sidewalk infrastructure, vacant lots and decaying buildings. Fortunately, this trend is beginning to reverse as more people move back to downtown neighborhoods and reap the benefits of living, working and playing in close proximity.

As this upward trend continues for urban neighborhoods, there is now an urgent need to revitalize the formerly vibrant neighborhood retail corridors that were home to a variety of businesses. Promoting and enabling neighborhood retail corridors can take the form of tenant recruitment and marketing strategies, however this assumes that the corridors already have existing physical assets to support existing businesses and attract new ones.

The typical market-led business attraction strategies may only serve to better inform commercial real estate agents and potential retail tenants about the untapped opportunity and market demand in these revitalizing neighborhoods. However, often, these neighborhoods themselves don’t have sufficient viable commercial spaces to support the retail tenants that might be interested in the market. This would then call for redevelopment and more specifically, mixed use developments that can both provide housing for residents hoping to move back to urban areas and provide commercial space for retail, restaurants and even offices.

In fact, the most direct intervention to promote neighborhood retail development is to develop new commercial real estate in the form of ground floor retail spaces and these may be led by the public sector, private sector, or even public-private partnerships. In fact, public sector-led projects can often “act as catalysts of further neighborhood development, with the expectation being that public investment in one or more key initial projects will lead to greatly increased private (unsubsidized) development activity.”

As urban neighborhoods start to get back on their feet with more ground floor retail, a myriad of economic and social benefits may also arise for local residents, particularly in areas that are still seeing a concentration of poverty or lower income families.

One South Market development in downtown San Jose.

Firstly, the presence of neighborhood retail at ground floor often has an incredible impact on overall neighborhood vibrancy and safety, and can create a positive image for the area. In fact, neighborhood retail has often been described as the ‘front door’ to a community, acting as a signal for the direction and types of changes occurring in the area. As retail offerings and storefronts improve, locals also will likely perceive the whole neighborhood as improving and becoming more vibrant.

In fact, ground floor retail, when designed well with transparent facades and welcoming signage, can result in additional lighting on the streets in the evening. If the stores operate into the night, for example restaurants and convenience stores, then these businesses will also contribute to more eyes on the street with patrons and employees coming in and out of the stores. These traits although often negligible can certainly contribute to neighborhood safety and other quality of life factors.

Neighborhood retail can also serve to provide key services to residents in the immediate area, including medical facilities, daycare centers, hair and personal care salons, and finance and tax service centers. These services would be especially important in neighborhoods that are attracting young families with children and working parents. Over time, the easy access to these amenities can even influence the location decisions of more households, potentially inviting even greater retail market demand from local residents.

Shops + Lofts at 47 in Chicago,IL features 55,000SF of retail

In addition, the retail and offices that fill ground floor commercial spaces can often become main employers for urban neighborhoods. Shops & Lofts at 47 in Chicago, IL for example is a mixed use development with over 55,000 ground floor retail SF. It is currently occupied by a Walmart Neighborhood Market, Subway, Burger King, Associated Bank and Uncle Remus Chicken, and as of 2016, there were about 35 full time employees working in the single development. Other than retail, medical service centers located on ground floors are also well-paying employers (in fact, ground floor commercial spaces are often suited to large medical institutions seeking outposts for supplementary services such as eye clinics). Overall, retail and services in revitalizing urban neighborhoods provide great job and even entrepreneurship opportunities, particularly in lower income areas.

Finally, neighborhood retail is key in solving for food deserts. Often neighborhoods that have experience the decline and decay of previous decades have lost major anchor grocery stores and are now the face of healthy food equity gap. By creating new and well-equipped spaces for large and small grocery stores to enter the neighborhood, many more residents will be able to gain access to fresh produce and essential goods that were not so easily available. Some revitalizing urban neighborhoods have even seen immigrant business owners that are bravely entering new retail spaces, offering culture-specific grocery items and thriving.

Pinecrest project in Cleveland will feature ground floor 

retail, office, residential, and public plazas.

Retail is important to building strong communities in our neighborhoods as it contributes to street vibrancy, neighborhood safety, job opportunities, and access to key services and healthy food.  As we continue our work on neighborhood retail revitalization and leading development, or business attraction strategies in emerging neighborhoods, we need to maximize the benefits to local residents who will continue to live, work and play in these areas for years to come. 

For more resources, check out:

Beyard, Michael D., Michael Pawlukiewicz, and Alex Bond. Ten Principles for Rebuilding Neighborhood Retail. Washington, D.C.: ULI–the Urban Land Institute, 2003. http://uli.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/TP_NeighborhoodRetail.ashx_1.pdf

What difference can a few stores make? Retail and neighborhood revitalization. Rick Jacobus and Karen Chapple, 2010. http://communityinnovation.berkeley.edu/reports/Retail-and-neighborhood-revitalization.pdf

Managing Homelessness Downtown

Our recent experience working with downtowns in the state of New York and in North Carolina this past year has brought to our attention a spike in stakeholder concerns over homelessness downtown. The homeless population is often referred to as the people who “lack a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence". In downtowns, the homeless are often seen occupying public or private places that are not designed to be regular sleeping accommodation including parking lots and garages, storefront stoops, transit stations, vacant buildings/ lots etc. In addition to this group, there are also the homeless who live in substandard buildings that lack sanitation, cooking facilities or heat, who are often disregarded.

Trend

Seeing the rising concern over homelessness in our own projects led us to dig a little deeper into the trends happening elsewhere. As it turns out, homelessness is indeed spiking in cities all across the country, and particularly in downtowns. In San Diego, for example, tent cities have begun proliferating downtown near freeway on-ramps and commercial districts and homeless service centers. On a recent trip to Seattle, WA, I witnessed the same trend occurring under the on-ramp to I-90 by the CenturyLink Field and Chinatown District.

A myriad of factors contribute to the rising homeless population downtown but many leaders are increasingly placing blame on criminal justice reforms, which have downgraded some felonies to misdemeanors and therefore keeping some people out of prison or drug treatment and instead leaving them on the streets.

The more popular reason for the rise in homelessness downtown, however, remains the increasing cost of rents and disappearance of residential hotels. As more people look to live in convenient and vibrant downtowns across the nation, the high demand for downtown apartments and houses is slowly driving prices up for all housing stock. Meanwhile, homeless advocates are also pointing to the significant loss of single-room occupancy units, or SROs, as a key factor in the homelessness crisis. Many SRO units that still remain are unfortunately uninviting and unaffordable.

Why do homeless people gather downtown?

While those who can afford to live in downtowns are moving to these areas for comfort, convenience, and entertainment, homeless individuals on the other hand are coming in droves because downtown is often the best place to seek day service centers, social service centers, and basic amenities such as bathrooms and water fountains.  Downtown is also the place where homeless folks can get a meal, a shower or a shelter bed – resources that often cannot be found elsewhere.

During a stakeholder interview for our work in Middletown (NY), Director of the Thrall Library, Matt Pfisterer informed us that the homeless population there was particularly active around the library because they needed bathroom access in the day when they were not in shelters. Later in the afternoon, he reports, the homeless crowd migrates towards the soup kitchens and other downtown homeless service centers as they start to compete for safe and comfortable night time lodging. The Thrall Library, as do many other libraries across the nation, does its best to accommodate this group by ensuring bathrooms are monitored and maintained constantly throughout the day by staff and personnel to ensure that all library users can continue to use the bathrooms hassle-free.

Issues

Bathroom lines and litter are hardly issues when it comes to dealing with homelessness downtown. Many cities are facing harder problems such as drug use in public, rise in reported theft, and overall, a perceived lack of safety amongst residents and visitors. This overall unwelcoming atmosphere is not only discouraging some from living and investing in downtown, but also discouraging customers from shopping and visiting downtown. In our experience, we have heard from business owners and property owners that homelessness downtown has negatively impacted foot traffic and in turn, sales. In some cases, the homeless population has been driven to spend nights on storefront stoops and use back alleys as latrines, giving store employees additional work in the morning when they return to open and operate businesses.

Lower patronage downtown has even resulted in businesses closing in Portland, OR. A dance studio in downtown Portland, OR experienced dwindling class attendance from out-of-towners who felt scared walking to and from parking lots and dance class in the evenings as a result of the spike in the homeless population there.

Management Solutions

Whether perceived or real, this lack of safety experienced downtown can be managed by downtown organizations. The first step in managing homelessness downtown is counting, keeping track, and being aware of the current situation. After all, you cannot manage what you don’t know.  By keeping count of your homeless population, you will be able to determine the actual size and scope of the issue and at the same time identify hot spots with high concentrations of homeless folks and their peak visiting times during the day.

A common way to count the population is to use the ‘point-in-time’ method. This method requires that the count take place on one day every year across the city or downtown and therefore provides a Point-In-Time snapshot of the homeless population. This can be conducted by public or private sector volunteers including, of course, the downtown organization. This information can then even be registered with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development to become a part of a nationwide database for understanding homelessness across the country and will be required to be considered for federal funding to combat homelessness.

The limitation with this method, however, is that volunteers counting are only limited to what they can see by eye. In essence, they count the number of homeless people seen in cars, and on foot and if there are those who are hidden in tents, an assumption is made that there are two people per tent and may therefore be undercounting. Keeping a consistent counting method throughout the months and years is crucial for comparing data over time accurately and as long as this limitation is recognized, downtown organizations will be able to make informed decisions.

Downtown San Diego Partnership takes counting a step further by organizing a monthly survey instead of an annual one. Homeless outreach workers with the Downtown Partnership cover 275 city blocks between midnight and 5 a.m. on the last Thursday of every month and they have been counting since 2012. This has enabled them to see changes year-on-year and the data has helped the Partnership determine what actions need to be taken to manage the spike in homelessness and also to determine factors that may be affecting the numbers.

Taking Action

There are a number of actions that can be taken by downtowns to manage their homeless populations depending on size and scope.

First, developing a Vulnerability Index has been critical to many downtowns and cities in order for them to identify and prioritize the homeless population on the streets that should qualify for housing. A Vulnerability Index typically measures length of homelessness and mortality risk and is a practical application—a person-to-person survey—that is “revolutionizing the speed at which … chronically homeless population is placed into permanent housing”.

In some cities, non profits are stepping forward to create diverse housing stocks for the formerly homeless and low-income residents. Mixed-income permanent supportive housing is becoming a popular strategy to house the homeless population in larger cities such as DC and NYC.Often these buildings also feature community spaces such as rooftop terraces, gardens, lounges, gyms and laundry rooms that help the residents get out and engage with neighbors – a holistic environment for recovery from homelessness or any other dire situation.

While providing housing stock may be a longer term strategy, other short to medium-term strategies are also in place in many downtowns across the country. Libraries, as mentioned earlier, are becoming top community spaces that support the homeless population. The DC public library, for example, now provides an innovative outreach program for the homeless since its first hire of a Health and Human Services Coordinator. A Knight Foundation grant in 2015 enabled DC Public library to create an online interface of health and human services data  and train librarians in homelessness outreach so that when homeless folks come up to a librarian, he/she is able to direct them to the right service providers and give the correct referrals. This is a simple yet essential tool for supporting homeless folks and getting them back on track.

In other instances, business improvement districts have partnered with existing homeless-serving organizations to carry out supportive programs. In Los Angeles, CA, Downtown Center Business Improvement District  funds homeless outreach teams to contact, interview and assist homeless people living in the west side of downtown. Over $255,000 has been funneled from the BID to two social services agencies in order to hire staff to do this outreach work. PATH, or People Assisting the Homeless, is one of the organizations that provides services, including street outreach, shelter and housing construction. Chrysalis, a skid row program, then provides job preparation and temporary work experience, and also has been tasked with picking up litter in areas heavily-trafficked by homeless folks. In the first year of funding from the BID, outreach workers completed 196 assessments, and placed 36 people in permanent housing and enrolled 56 in PATH’s housing services.

Downtown San Diego Partnership, on the other hand, has set up a Clean and Safe Program and DowntownDC BID partnered with the city government and 20 local service providers in order to facilitate various efforts to end homelessness. This includes a partnership with Pathways to Housing DC that has deployed a 4-person, clinically-based outreach team that provides street-level intervention to move individuals beyond homelessness to independence. In addition, DowntownDC BID’s Safety/ Hospitality and Maintenance employees have 12 specially-trained members, known as the Homeless Outreach Service Team (HOST), who work closely with the Pathways to Housing DC Team and are trained to recognize and engage individuals with mental and addiction challenges. The smallest yet most impactful effort made by DowntownDC BID, however, remains the brown bag discussions that help educate the public on homelessness and raise awareness.

Installing public bathrooms is another potential strategy that might mitigate instances of public urination/ defecation. Although not all instances of this offence is carried out by the homeless, the compassionate approach rather than law enforcement approach has been widely praised by residents of the city of Denver, CO, where a pilot program of mobile public restrooms was established last year. These mobile facilities cost $12,000 per month to lease and are cleaned nightly and rotated regularly to different locations. Public bathrooms are basic amenities that should be made available to all users of downtown.

Given that vacant lots are often targeted for homeless camps to set up, downtown organizations may mitigate the situation by requiring or ensuring that private property owners have reliable property management companies in place to monitor compliance with zoning codes.

Finally, as downtown organizations plan ahead the annual schedule of events, they might start thinking about organizing events in partnership with homeless groups and shelters to accelerate and coordinate the move-in process. These processes normally take 60 days to happen but can be expedited in a single all-day event that serves as both outreach to homeless folks and also one that raises awareness amongst the general public.

Take a Comprehensive Approach

Overall, it is important to acknowledge that ignoring the homeless population downtown will not make it go away. A comprehensive approach must be taken by downtowns, in partnership with city, state or even federal agencies, and nonprofits and local community groups. Addressing the full range of issues faced by the homeless including housing/shelter, employment services, meals, and rehabilitation is crucial to managing the problem. It is also important to remember to count and measure the scale and scope of the issue first before taking any mitigating steps. This ensures that the response or strategies implemented directly serve those in need rather than simply blanket the problem.

What comes after streetscape improvements? One Caribbean island tries to figure out what's next for its centuries old historic district.

Last week I had the opportunity to tour the Ciudad Colonial, or the "colonial city" of Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. The tour was led by the Inter American Development Bank (IDB), one of the leading funders of downtown revitalization throughout Latin America. I was thrilled to be back in my element. Almost twenty years ago I spent a year traveling around the world as a Watson Fellow (quite honestly the best gig I have ever had!). I puddle jumped my way through thirteen countries to study downtown revitalization as it was being practiced in Spain and former Spanish colonies. Yet despite all of my travels, this was my first visit to Santo Domingo.

The downtown is of modest size - 9,000 residents - and is about 5 km square. As one of the first Spanish colonial outposts in the New World, the city follows the Law of the Indies. These were the planning ordinances that the Spanish Crown set for its colonies. These laws were themselves modeled on Roman planning practices that were developed during the expansion of the Roman Empire in Europe.

I was thrilled to see the effort to revitalize the City Center taking shape. The effort has received significant support from the IDB and according to my guides, almost $30 million dollars has been invested in streetscape improvements intended to both beautify and make the very narrow colonial streets safer for pedestrians. The improvements were quite impressive and certainly have made an impact on the street.

But challenges remain. As the IDB team and local stakeholders look to graduate their efforts from capital and physical improvements, the road ahead can be rocky. Capital funding is generally easier to secure than the resources - both human and financial - that are often critical to keeping up the momentum.  Now that the streets are in great shape, the work of getting people there, and ensuring that the offerings of housing, hospitality, culture, retail and entertainment keep them there as either visitors, businesses or residents, is the next step. 

In thinking this through, I am reminded of the "Retail Ready" Hierarchy that we speak about at LOA quite frequently. 

"Retail Ready" Hierarchy

The first step involves "who" is going to get things done. The individuals, organizations and institutions who lead and execute the effort. The second phase involves focusing on the fundamentals, making sure the physical environment is comfortable, clean, accessible and safe. While you never really move on from Phase II - maintaining improvements over time is as important as getting them constructed int he first place - you need some of the basics in place before moving on to the advanced stages of revitalization. Phase III is about building the customer base through a variety of methods. For some communities, it can mean increasing the number of residents who form the basis of stable market demand. In a district like the Ciudad Colonial, with a 70% upper vacancy rate, repopulating the downtown is one potential strategy. These residents subsequently become a stable source of demand that support local businesses through the ups and downs of tourism. In communities whose economies are driven by tourism, there is the additional need to ensure that visitors have enough to see and do, from retail offerings, to events and activities, to make a stay worthwhile. These offerings need to be simultaneously marketed through thoughtful promotion and innovative partnerships that help attract visitors to the district - and ensure they stay as long as possible.   

Nearly 18 years ago I wrote about this strategy in Habitat Debate, a United Nations publication, in a piece entitled "Rehabilitating Historic Districts through Public-Private Partnerships" (which amazing can still be found on-line!). The premise of those findings still hold. In both Santiago, Chile and Quito, Ecuador, non-profit or public-private partnerships were first formed to improve the physical environment, attract investment and development new housing - i.e. grow the customer base - for downtown goods and services. Both efforts have had great success and have been lauded as models for other Latin American countries. These lessons have clearly made it to Santo Domingo and it will be exciting to see what happens next!

Here are a few pics from my visit...enjoy!

Thank you to my wonderful hosts! And to my son for being rather patient as him mom takes him on urban planning tours. 

A quaint residential block in the historic district

Tourists can rent bicycles for an easy ride around town. 

Paseo Conde is the main pedestrian corridor. 

Directional Signage/Maps for tourists dot the Paseo El Conde

The IDB is funding some development projects that promise to bring more people to the district.
The building clad in black scaffolding is one such project. 

It's not about the retail, stupid

In my work I often talk about the need for communities to "get retail ready", but the truth is, it's all a ruse. What I'm often really saying is "please don't use your limited resources for retail attraction  just yet, because frankly you've got lots of other things to worry about!" The truth is, great retail streets are a manifestation of the communities that surround them, not the other way around. There is a maxim in retail that most can recite and that holds true here: "retail follows rooftops."

As a community development practitioner - which is truly what I am - I take this maxim very seriously. In urban communities where population decline has left pockets of poverty and what we have come to call "shrinking cities", the lack of rooftops is a major challenge. So often, the first step in building a great retail district begins with building rooftops - and the ensuing density and market demand that is ultimately required to support businesses.

In 2013, the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development asked our firm to lead an assessment of the economic development activities of community development corporations in New York City. The final report, entitled "Roadmap for Equitable Economic Development" laid out a framework for supporting the natural evolution of the community development industry. More and more, CDCs are building upon their success in housing construction (i.e. those all so important "rooftops") and expanding their role into a wider variety of community development activities, including small business support, commercial corridor improvement efforts, land use advocacy and workforce training, to name a few. This is truly a natural outgrowth that reflects the success they have had in community building efforts - success that has now positioned many of these groups to take on a new role - improving local commercial corridors and ensuring that residents have access to vital goods and services.

The hierarchy of community development, from ANHD's
"Roadmap for Equitable Development"

But let us not forget that getting there took decades - and the work is far from done. We must ensure that this work remains funded through financial tools that have played an instrumental role in helping to build much needed affordable housing.

I share all this because we recently started a project in a challenging urban community in New Jersey. At a forum discussion with local residents it quickly became clear that retail was a concern, but perhaps not a priority. What emerged was a portrait of a deeply troubled community where the complicated issues of poverty, lack of viable job opportunities and rampant crime were first and foremost on people's minds. One participant shared her experience holding a young boy in her arms after he had been shot and going through two towels to keep him from bleeding out. Her struggles are real. The challenges of her community are real. The fact that loitering at the local bodega might result in an assault, robbery or worse are real. In this kind of environment, local businesses struggle just like everybody else. They often cover window openings - or worse remove them entirely - to prevent being cased by thieves. Local business owners struggle to make ends meet, deferring investments and maintenance that might make them more attractive places to shop. It's a deadening cycle that can be difficult to break.

In the end, these efforts are really about improving the market dynamics of community, which may mean spending 15 years on housing development. So in the beginning, it may not really be about the retail, that might have to come later.