Business Retention and Development Committee Agenda and Packet 2014 05 05

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BUSINESS RETENTION AND DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE SUBJECT: REVIEW OF RETAIL BROKER ROUNDTABLE DATE:MAY 5, 2014 PRESENTED BY: AARON DEJONG, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY: th The BRaD Committee held a retail broker roundtable on April 16 to hear from Denver Metro retail brokers to determine how the City can better provide resources and assistance in recruiting and maintaining strong retail opportunities as well as understanding the needs of retailers today and tomorrow. DISCUSSION: The following list compiles comments made by the brokers throughout the discussion. I have purposefully kept the comments relatively rough so the committee members can identify their own themes that arise from the responses. In educating the brokers and potential tenant, Louisville needs to tell their success stories and continue to have policies in place to help retailer to be successful as other retailers like to be around other success. Need to achieve at or above store space average for their portfolio. Find out if your retailers are beating their peer stores. Junior boxes are reducing their footplate / square footage everyone is going to smaller more efficient (example mini-box that use to be in 15K to 20K FT is now in 10k to 15k; 2) Starbucks is moving from 3,000 to 1,500 with drive-through) Drive-throughs (and double and triple) are becoming more important for restaurants. Visibility and access is critical for retailer success. Louisville has visibility and access issue due to landscaping requirements with overgrown and dense / overly mature. Parking requirements for the tenant are very important, don’t be a city that requires less parking than what a retailer wants. Auto focused, traditional retail, is still a winner. Additionally, access and egress issues in and out of sites. Lifestyle center concept has proven to not be a workable layout concept. Lifestyle centers only work with enough density to support it. Louisville is a tertiary market. Denver and Boulder are primary 1st tier markets, Ft. Collins and Co. Springs are secondary. Retailers do not factor city boundaries in their site selection criteria.