Action Plan: Shopping

Purpose

When people speak of the good old days of Downtown, they always mention the busy retail stores that covered the length of Main Street and Downtown. Although the nature of retail has fundamentally changed, and Downtown will probably never again be the regional center for retail, it is still important to focus on retail to make Downtown an attractive place to live, work and play. Because Downtown is so under served by retail businesses, it provides a significant market opportunity. Downtown needs retail as an amenity, a symbolic victory, and an economic generator.

Context

One of the traditional benefits of working in Downtown Buffalo has been the variety of services that are available. Employees have the ability to run errands before, during, and directly after work. As Downtown retail has declined, so has the number of errands the Downtown worker can accomplish. Retail is the number one amenity requested by Downtown employees. Retail is also vital to maintaining and strengthening the Downtown neighborhood, the inner ring of neighborhoods that surround Downtown, and the visitor market.

The current perception is that retail does not work Downtown. A nearly empty mall and well-publicized store closings have reinforced this. However the truth can often be different. Several specialty and destination stores are thriving Downtown. Many of the stores that were in the mall had the highest sales per square foot in the region, even with limited hours typical of a CBD location. More often than not, these closings had more to do with macro-corporate failure rather than micro-store performance.

Special events and street activity during the summer workday bring large volumes of pedestrians to the street and past the shops. 15,000 to 20,000 pedestrians walk past underutilized Main Street storefronts on a typical summer weekday. National studies have indicated that lunchtime pedestrian volumes over 1,000 people per hour are sufficient to support retail development. There are 16 locations along Main Street that meet this standard and 4 that average over 1,000 people per hour throughout the day.

Interviews with successful Downtown retailers have uncovered opportunities for retail development. The limited shopping hours favored by the Downtown employee market are ideal for single proprietors as they result in lower labor costs. The successful Downtown retailer will probably be the small, unique, local store specializing in medium-priced merchandise needed by Downtown employees and area residents.

There are some very real challenges to improving the Downtown retail scenario. The market is unproven to national retailers, who are not willing pioneers. Much of the first floor space that could be retail is in disrepair or used as office space. And Downtown retail must be flexible enough to serve the very different Downtown constituencies: worker, resident, visitor and nearby city residents. This requires very good market data or a dynamic mix of stores. The various groups that live, work, and play in and around Downtown are viable markets for new retail. There needs to be a concerted effort to capture more of these dollars.

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