If they put Lululemon in your downtown, would you visit?
City planners and business associations are asking questions like that, namely what mix of shops and services will entice people downtown.
I found it heartening to learn that my own city, in conjunction with the local business association, is in the final stages of a study to find out what mix of businesses we need, then develop a plan to go after them.
This is good news to residents like me who fear our downtown is being carved up willy-nilly, with no overall plan for what is needed or wanted. It’s nice to know that some smart people are on the hunt for signature stores.
Some call this the Starbucks factor. You know an area is on the verge of renewal when the high-end coffee seller sets up shop, as they did in downtown Burlington recently.
“Starbucks is our gateway,” says Brian Dean, general manager of the Burlington Downtown Business Association. “It’s a bellwether store. It raises expectations” about the other stores you’ll find in the district.
You need a few of these bellwethers — Lululemon is another — to anchor a downtown, without turning it into an outdoor mall of national chains. That’s the kiss of death for downtowns, which almost by definition are the “anti-malls,” to use Dean’s word.
Last week, I sat down with Dean and Jody Wellings, Burlington’s downtown coordinator, to talk about the findings of the study, which are based on consultations with residents, customers, businesses and other stakeholders.
Apparently what we want, and need, downtown are high-end specialty shops. Purveyors of things like: Organic local produce, specialty meats and cheeses, gourmet pastries, handcrafted jewellery, handmade bath products, ethnic restaurants, educational toys, and high end lingerie and athletic wear. Hello, Lulu.
We’d also like bed and breakfasts and a small indoor play centre, with a cafe.
In short, we want unique offerings, with a little something for everyone — seniors, families, couples and empty nesters.
Ideally, every neighbourhood in every city would be built this way. But the suburbs have long languished within a car culture, which placed a premium on one-stop shopping and huge parking lots.
MIX OF DEMOGRAPHICS
Downtowns — most created before the driving explosion — are the exception. That’s why they’re the key to suburban renewal. They already provide a mix of demographics and functions — civic, cultural, commercial and retail enterprises exist alongside a variety of residential types, from single family homes to condo living to affordable housing.
Downtown cores are also key to managing the explosive growth in our region. The downtown areas of 905 cities have been targeted under the province’s Places to Grow legislation to absorb the bulk of population and job growth through “intensification.”
In lay terms that means fitting 200 jobs or people within each hectare. This is to protect neverending sprawl from overtaking our precious greenbelt. Burlington’s downtown is currently at about 107 per hectare.
There are some best practises emerging for building great downtowns, including unique retail and housing variety. But there are also some challenges. Here are just a few:
- Parking: Most downtown cores don’t have enough. So Burlington developed a parking levy every business pays into. The fund currently has about $900,000 that will be used to maintain and build public parking spaces, which cost $10,000 each for surface and $35,000 each for underground.
- Matching users to space: Finding the right space in the right location, and a landlord willing to rent it to you, is challenging, not least because the available stock — and ownership — is constantly in flux.
- Restrictive covenants in sales agreements: Let’s say you buy land from a grocery store to build a condo. If you want to put in a ground floor grocery, a “restrictive covenant” allows the seller right of refusal, if, for example, they want to protect another store they own nearby from competition.
Though not insurmountable, these challenges may mean the difference between Lulu — or your favourite business — coming to town or not. Having a plan is a step in the right direction.
