Is the Future of Retail Un-Deliverable?

By Alex Pearlstein, Vice President

You’ve seen them and maybe even visited them – possibly more often than your pocketbook can accommodate. This expanding retail category is about experiences, a commodity that can’t be shipped digitally, in brown/white/blue delivery trucks, or by drone. As the “retail apocalypse” continues to thin the herds of mall anchors and tenants and cause “for rent” signs to proliferate on commercial streets and shopping districts, establishments that provide a unique entertainment product are demonstrating market viability in a difficult period for brick-and-mortar retail.

Even restaurants – a tried-and-true destination retail staple – face growing competition from make-at-home meal distributors like Blue Apron and on-demand food delivery juggernauts like Grubhub and Uber Eats. Same goes for markets, where browsing for the ripest tomato can now be done by a gig worker who drives it to your house in a matter of hours, or less. Just about anything that can be bought in a store can now be purchased online or through an app.

Entertainment retail centers (ERCs) and family entertainment center (FECs) offer a “delivery-proof” experience that’s just hard to mimic despite the size of your home gaming console and big screen. It’s also about community – the chance to meet friends and strangers in an environment conducive to shared encounters. If you can get a booze buzz, all the better. Hence the happy hour specials at Dave and Busters, Topgolf, and other ERCs.

For families, buck-toothed staple Chuck E. Cheese has been joined by play centers like Monkey Joe’s and Sky Zone trampoline parks in the battle to empty your wallets and your children’s energy tanks.

Smaller footprint hybrids like “Barcade” (bars with arcade games), active-game bar/restaurants like the buzzy Woolworth in Birmingham, and other models are also finding success with patrons looking to spice up the typical night-out experience. For kiddos, restaurants are equipping outside space with play areas to lure families and birthday parties. During a recent trip to Austin for a wedding, we were drawn to the Hat Creek Burger Company like moths to a char-broiled flame.


The Woolworth in Birmingham, Alabama

Hat Creek Burger Company in Austin, Texas

It’s not just chains that are finding success. Local centers like Smash Park in West Des Moines, Iowa  and Two Bit Circus in Los Angeles are examples of entrepreneurial ERC/FEC plays.

Smash Park in West Des Moines, Iowa

Importantly, entertainment centers are becoming substitute anchors for malls that have lost their department store tenants and represent desirable new-build options for developers looking to fill thousands of square feet of retail space. The ERC/FEC category typically features floorplates of 15,000 to 50,000 square feet and can even go larger. Even with new centers opening rapidly, experts feel the FEC market is far from saturation and will continue to expand. Allied Market Research estimates the global FEC market size at $18,907 million in 2017 and projects it will rise to $ 40,814 million by 2025, a combined annual growth rate of 10.2 percent.

Economic developers must stay abreast of the new trends roiling the retail landscape and connect property owners and leasing agents to investment prospects in the ERC/FEC market. As technology continues to blow up the retail paradigm, the health of a community’s tax base – especially those dependent on sales taxes – will increasingly be tied to opportunities to create destination experiences that can’t be matched by the click of a button.

Topeka Momentum 2022 Receives Outstanding Coverage From Local Newspaper

By Matt DeVeaus- Project Manager

Over the years, our team has seen many of our clients invest significant time and energy into their strategy launch. We’ve consistently seen our clients cultivate positive relationships with media partners, government officials, institutions and corporations in the effort of successfully marketing their community economic and development strategies.

Communities such as Des Moines, who since 2011 has partnered with top leaders in the Central Iowa region on their Capital Crossroads initiative, have had highly successful campaigns. In 2010, Birmingham launched a comprehensive five-year economic development strategy by the name of Blueprint Birmingham. Other communities like Watertown, South Dakota have been praised by their local media for their H20-20 visioning process. Their initiative has been recognized as “perhaps the most intensive citizen-driven effort ever developed in South Dakota” by the Watertown Public Opinion newspaper.

Market Street’s recently completed process in Topeka, Kansas has also received great coverage from the local newspaper, The Topeka Capital-Journal. But on Sunday August 6, the community and the newspaper took things to the next level with an outstanding 30-page special section that highlights the community’s Momentum 2022 strategy and the programs, initiatives, and people that will work to make Topeka-Shawnee County a more successful and prosperous place.

The strength of the Momentum 2022 strategy and the media coverage can be attributed to visionary community and staff leadership. A volunteer Steering Committee chaired by Shawnee County Commissioner Shelly Buhler, Topeka Mayor Larry Wolgast, and Bartlett & West CEO Keith Warta. The Committee was comprised of dynamic leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, including the publisher of The Topeka Capital-Journal, Zach Ahrens. With the aid of his team, Matt Pivarnik, who is the President and CEO of the Topeka Chamber and Go Topeka, has worked closely and tirelessly with The Topeka Capital-Journal and others to ensure that Momentum 2022 is well-publicized as the blueprint for the community’s future. Based on this coverage we would say they are well on their way!

To view all articles on Momentum 22 visit: cjonline.com/momentum2022

A sampling of some of the articles from Momentum 2022 here:

· Collaborate for a strong community: Despite challenges, Topeka residents see city moving in positive direction

· Live chat: Covering all the bases of Momentum 2022 in Topeka, Shawnee County

· Grow a diverse economy: Tracking metrics will help Topeka leaders determine the right path

· Young professionals leave Topeka to pursue career, come back to work and live

Capital Crossroads Launches 2.0 Strategy

By Alex Pearlstein, Vice President

If there is an equivalent of “Economic Development Strategy Implementation 101,” it would be the activation and sustained work on Greater Des Moines and Central Iowa’s Capital Crossroads 1.0 initiative beginning in 2011. In its first five-year implementation cycle, many of the top leaders in the Central Iowa region, upwards of 700 volunteers, and dozens of public and private government, institutional, and corporate partners have come together behind a comprehensive, holistic, aggressive, and transformative vision for change in the community. Midway through implementation, Capital Crossroads brought on its first director, who helped spearhead the outreach, engagement, and coordination of strategic activities. The initiative has achieved hundreds of “victories” as detailed on the newly revamped project website at http://www.capitalcrossroadsvision.com/accomplishments/.

On February 1 of this year, an even more ambitious Capital Crossroads 2.0 was launched to great fanfare at an event in Des Moines. As with the 1.0 process, I had the privilege of working with the Greater Des Moines Partnership, the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines, and representatives from their many strategic partners to facilitate the development of the 2.0 vision plan. Media reports on the plan and its launch can be found here, here, here, and here.

What makes Capital Crossroads the gold standard of regional planning initiatives is the fact that the blueprint has truly become the overarching framework for strategic programming in Greater Des Moines. It captures under its network of organizations and volunteers the principal tent poles supporting the structural advancement of the region as a destination of choice for companies and talent. In today’s world, this includes so much more than “traditional” economic development activities like marketing, existing business services, and entrepreneurial support. Capital Crossroads’ ten strategic Capitals and underlying components impact all key criteria that affect how communities compete in today’s economy, including emphases on talent development, retention, and attraction, quality of life and place enhancement, infrastructure concerns, and topics not found in any other strategic plan Market Street has ever facilitated like civility, mental health, soil and water quality, and many others. If – as I firmly believe – economic development should focus on optimizing the “product” that EDPros are marketing (the community), then Capital Crossroads is the most expansive product development program in America.

Simply acknowledging what must be done to make a region competitive and capturing it under a strategic plan is the easy part. What differentiates Capital Crossroads is that Central Iowa comes together to do the “dirty work” of resourcing, collaborating, coordinating, and sustaining its strategic programming as effectively as any community I’ve seen. It all starts with visionary, progressive, and committed public and private leadership –what Greater Des Moines Partnership CEO Jay Byers calls the region’s “secret sauce.” If they could bottle that sauce, there would be buyers in every community in the U.S. and beyond.

While I no longer live in Des Moines, I’m happy that I’m still able to absorb the wisdom and wonder of the place through my participation in Capital Crossroads’ ongoing evolution. It’s the best course in strategic implementation I could ever hope to take.

Immigration and Economic Development

By Ranada Robinson, Research Manager

Yesterday, Market Street participated in the ACCE webinar entitled Immigration and Economic Development: A Regional Approach. It was moderated by Kate Brick with the Partnership for a New American Economy. This bi-partisan organization is dedicated to changing the discussion on immigration to include why making sure immigrants are successful should be a priority in economic development efforts. Contrary to many of the negative stereotypes circulating in the media about immigrants and erecting walls to keep them out, immigrants and foreign-born residents continue to make a significant impact on this nation. During the webinar, Ms. Brick shared these statistics:

• Immigrants make up roughly 13 percent of the nation’s population but started 28 percent of all new US businesses in 2011.
• Over 40 percent of Fortune 500 businesses were started by immigrants or their children.
• These companies employ over 10 million workers globally.
• Immigrants are over-represented in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math employment and are more likely to study in STEM fields than native born Americans.

The webinar featured two speakers: Jason Mathis, Executive Vice President of the Salt Lake Chamber, and Mary Bontrager, Executive Vice President of Regional Workforce Development and Education at the Greater Des Moines Partnership. Here are just a few of the ways these communities and a couple others that were highlighted during the webinar are welcoming and embracing immigrants and their entrepreneurial pursuits.

Salt Lake City, Utah – New Americans Task Force

In 2011, the Utah legislature passed a bill that allows illegal immigrants to apply for a guest worker permit if they pay a fine for being in the country illegally. However, the bill has been highly contested. The program start date has been pushed back over the years, and since the state has not obtained a federal waiver to ensure its constitutionality, lawmakers are now contemplating the law’s repeal. Proponents of the law maintain that it is vital to ensuring that Utah has a strong workforce, particularly in agricultural occupations.

Most recently, the Salt Lake County Government and the Salt Lake Chamber have joined together to launch a New Americans Task Force that includes over 60 private sector, government, and community leaders. Its goal is to develop policy recommendations to make the area more competitive for international talent and business, including supporting proposed reforms to streamline immigration policies. 

According to Immigrant Business, in 2014, immigrants contributed $8 billion to Salt Lake County’s economy. Additionally, from 2009 to 2014, foreign-born population growth in the county has outpaced overall population growth by nearly 15 percentage points. 

Des Moines, Iowa – Immigration Initiative

In 2011, leaders from throughout Central Iowa engaged Market Street to facilitate a dynamic strategic planning process that would become known as Capital Crossroads. The strategy resulted in ten focus areas called “capitals”—one of these is the Social Capital, which encapsulates leadership development, diversity and inclusion initiatives, and community capacity and civility. One of the most aggressive implementation efforts that Market Street has seen in its 19-year history, Capital Crossroads leaders immediately established work groups and have begun many of the initiatives that were recommended in the strategy. In 2015, the Greater Des Moines Partnership announced the launch of the Des Moines Immigration Initiative, which intends to develop policy recommendations to increase and support Des Moines’ immigrant workforce and advocate at the local, state, and federal levels. 

Cincinnati, Ohio – Mayor Cranley’s Task Force on Immigration

In 2014, Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley launched a Task Force on Immigration to develop recommendations to make the city more immigrant-friendly. The Task Force included business leaders, workforce representatives, faith leaders, and representatives of local service organizations and was divided into five subcommittees: education and talent retention, rights and safety, economic development, international attractiveness, and resources and development. In 2015, the Task Force released its report, which includes 14 short-term recommendations and 9 long-term recommendations. One of its major recommendations is the creation of a Center for New Cincinnatians that will require the involvement of many key partners, including the City, the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, and the University of Cincinnati. The goal of the center is to easily link immigrants with services, both online and via a physical space.

According to the webinar, five percent of Cincinnati’s population is foreign-born, and 8 percent of business owners are foreign-born. In fact 21 percent of the city’s Main Street business owners are immigrants, evidence that immigrants are vitally important to the economy.

Louisville, Kentucky – Global Louisville

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced in 2015 a new public-private partnership aimed at attracting and retaining skilled immigrant workers and increasing Louisville’s global presence. Global Louisville is supported by the Metro Louisville government and Greater Louisville Inc., the regional chamber of commerce. The nonprofit will work on developing ways to retain students who are on temporary visas, increasing foreign student enrollment, and assisting immigrants looking for employment. This supports one of the goals in the 2014 Advantage Louisville Strategy, facilitated by Market Street: Cultivate Greater Louisville’s Diverse Talent.

According to Global Louisville, 5 percent of the population are foreign-born as are 5.1 percent of the employed workforce. However, immigrants are overrepresented in several areas: they make up 7.5 percent of all STEM workers, 12.9 percent of professional and business services employees, 15.3 percent of art, entertainment, and hospitality employees, 18.2 percent of workers in manufacturing, and 18.5 percent of education and health employees.

---

It is clear that ignoring immigration or even fighting immigration would be detrimental to the American economy—particularly when the concept of America was based on providing an asylum and new way of life for immigrants. Statistics show that it is untrue that immigrants are a drain on our economy—when “new Americans” are given a chance to thrive, they truly do, through filling workforce gaps and starting businesses. 

Evident across the country in our client communities is the desire to leverage the increasing diversity, not dampen it. What makes America great is the strengths, skills, knowledge, and perspectives of all of the diverse talent present in this country. Our differences make us better—we’re able to accomplish more together celebrating these differences than as a monolithic unit. It is important that communities continue working hard to develop strategies to embrace and support the workforce, including immigrants.

A New Year to Volunteer and Spur Community Change

By Ryan Regan, Project Associate

It is easy to put the ‘season of giving’ mentality commonly associated with December’s holiday season in the rearview mirror as we embrace a new year, but the month of January provides as good an opportunity as any to remember that a giving attitude should be adopted all year long. It is in this month that we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. via a federal holiday on January 18 that is now used as an opportunity to promote community service in places across the country.

Dr. King led a life of service and community activism that few before or after him will ever duplicate. The fact that we use his birthday to encourage volunteering in one’s community is most appropriate, since few other Americans can claim such a legacy rooted in philanthropy as his. Volunteering in one’s community and other forms of civic engagement are also vital for both the planning and implementation of the community and economic development strategies we here at Market Street Services help develop.

Civic engagement and community collaboration are at the core of the work that we do on behalf of our clients. We always emphasize to our clients that we are mere facilitators in the strategic planning process. The strategic plans born out of the processes we facilitate are ultimately owned by the community and implemented via an implementation framework that is rooted in civic engagement. All of our processes are led by a diverse steering committee of community leaders from the public, private, and non-profit sectors who volunteer their time to be champions for community change. It is not unusual to have CEOs of multi-million dollar corporations, elected officials, non-profit CEOs, and other accomplished professionals serving on these steering committees. Their commitment to the process and the expertise these community leaders bring to the table help to transform communities in ways that no single person or entity could accomplish on their own. This “giveback” attitude is what makes civic engagement so powerful, and when this mindset is adopted by the broader community, the sky becomes the limit.

Over the years, Market Street has had the pleasure to work in communities that have excelled at harnessing the power of civic engagement and volunteer leadership to fuel the momentum needed to achieve strategic goals. In Watertown, SD – a town of roughly 22,000 people – Market Street facilitated a community visioning process alongside a volunteer-driven steering committee that was committed to an inclusive process that welcomed the thoughts of all members of the community. Their efforts led to an astounding 2,200 resident responses to an online survey that helped to inform the vision planning process. As a share of the total population, the Watertown response rate easily eclipsed all other online survey response rates in other communities where Market Street has worked. The ability of the volunteer-led steering committee to engage the community in such an unprecedented manner and the willingness of so many community members to participate in the visioning process speak volumes about the civic capacity of this small rural town.

A similar story emerged in Des Moines, IA where Market Street worked with the Greater Des Moines Partnership in 2011 on a five-year vision plan for Central Iowa dubbed, “Capital Crossroads.” The region’s support for the strategy was tremendous and widespread. Key community institutions like the United Way of Central Iowa, Iowa State University, and the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines were just a few of the initial sponsors of the Capital Crossroads movement. The support of a broad array of regional institutions and the leadership provided by over 50 business and regional leaders who volunteered their time on a steering committee generated a great deal of energy for the process, from kickoff to implementation. A total of almost 4,300 members of the region provided input during the process via two online surveys. The total number of responses is a record for any community where Market Street has worked. In total, some 5,000 members of the region engaged themselves in the planning process by providing input through online surveys, one-on-one interviews, and focus group discussions. The region’s engagement in the process didn’t just stop there. The Capital Crossroads strategy’s implementation was launched in the fall of 2011 and organized around 11 strategic “capitals” – or goal areas – that include within them the strategy’s specific implementation activities. These 11 strategic capitals have been guided by their own committee of volunteers who have devoted countless hours to leading the implementation of Capital Crossroads, all in the name of being passionate civic leaders. Since implementation, some 500 members of the community have volunteered to serve on one of the strategic capital committees.

Some of what I just described can be summed up by what is referred to as “collective impact,” a term first mentioned in a 2011 Stanford Social Innovation Review article that continues to gain steam in public policy circles. Collective impact can be loosely defined as the process that results when a collection of organizations coordinate together to address complex large-scale social issues and opportunities in a manner that no one organization could have otherwise pursued on their own. It is a process that is engrained in collaboration, community engagement, and goal setting. In other words, it defines much of the community and economic development work that we do at Market Street. Community institutions that pursue their work in independent silos are only handcuffing themselves in an age where social connectivity and globalization reign supreme. The volunteer-driven community outreach efforts and results witnessed in Watertown, Des Moines, and many of our other client communities offer validation to the collective impact model and case study examples for how many of our national and global challenges ought to be tackled.

Despite the success stories we have witnessed over the years of passionate volunteers and communities that place a premium on community engagement, volunteer rates on a national level are lower than they have been in over a decade. According to a report released earlier this year by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), 25.3 percent of Americans volunteered in the 12-month span from September 2013 to September 2014. The BLS defines a volunteer as any person who performed unpaid work through or for an organization in the past 12 months. Clearly, this trend is worrisome for a number of reasons. Chief among them is that it may indicate that people are becoming less engaged in their communities, and by extension, less invested in their community’s future.

With a new year upon us, we at Market Street would like to thank those volunteer steering committee members and implementation partners who make our work so rewarding. Their commitment to the process and to their community is an admirable reflection on them as individuals and on their communities as places. And as we start brainstorming about our New Year’s resolutions, maybe we can all set aside some time to volunteer more in our community in 2016, in whatever capacity we can. As Dr. King put it, “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?”