Revitalization Commission Agenda and Packet 2014 05 12

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L Cityof Louisville 01 OR •litt' t'l' 1:+7* LOUISVILLE REVITALIZATION COMMISSION SUBJECT: DATE: REVIEW OF RETAIL BROKER ROUNDTABLE MAY 12, 2014 PRESENTED BY: AARON DEJONG, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SUMMARY: The BRaD Committee held a retail broker roundtable on April 16th to hear from Denver Metro retail brokers how the City might better provide resources and assistance in recruiting and maintaining strong retail opportunities as well as understanding the needs of retailers (and the retail brokers) today and tomorrow. The roundtable also had the side benefit of showcasing Louisville to some of the brokers who had either not been to Louisville before or who had not visited in several years. DISCUSSION: The following is a list of comments made by the brokers throughout the discussion: • In educating the brokers and potential tenants, Louisville needs to tell its success stories and continue to have policies in place to help retailers be successful; success fosters more success. Retailers need to achieve at or above store space sales averages for their portfolio. Find out if Louisville retailers are beating their peer stores. • Junior boxes are reducing their footplate / square footage and everyone is going to smaller more efficient sizes (for example, (1) mini -boxes that used to be 15,000 to 20,000 SF is now in 10,000 to 15,000; (2) Starbucks is moving from 3,000 to 1,500 SF with drive - through) • Retailers follow rooftops • Information needed to market properties: access, visibility, convenience, population within specified drivetime; daytime population (Boulder has 175,000); evening density, traffic counts, income levels, education levels, buying habits, commuting and other travel patterns. • The "big guys" do their own modeling. We need to show them the existing successes. The best thing you can do is make sure that the existing retailers stay successful. Taking care of who's here and not diluting that. The risk tolerance is very low right now. • The market is bifurcated or trifurcated into different tenants; the national and regional entities are looking for build -to -suit sites; local entities are looking for suitable existing space. • Drive -thrus (and double and triple) are becoming more important for restaurants. 5