To get the retail you want, you need to be purposeful

These days, I suggest that commercial district revitalization programs develop targeted campaigns to recruit specific types of businesses. Of course, such campaigns need to be based on data showing that there is a strong likelihood of success for the business category for which you are recruiting. Then, you produce a Request for Expression of Interest, which is more than an RFP, because it lays out the case for why the business will succeed, and what you're offering in the way of incentives. (The Business Recruitment Handbook by David Milder is a good resource, plus publications from the National Main Street Center.)

This, from the e-newsletter Shelf Awareness for the book trade, is a good example of what to do:
Town Seeks Bookstore, Must Be Independent, Energetic

Haddonfield, N.J., which has 12,000 people and is 15 minutes from Philadelphia, is looking for an independent bookstore "to enhance their downtown business district," the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association reported.

Haddonfield has "outstanding demographics, one of the best school districts in the state, parents who care deeply about education and a growing population of young families. Not to mention the fact that virtually every woman in town over the age of 25 is in some kind of book group!" Lisa Hurd, retail coordinator for the town, wrote to NAIBA. There is a Barnes & Noble 20 minutes away; Haddonfield's Cabbages and Kings bookstore closed some five years ago.

The Partnership for Haddonfield, a business improvement district for which Hurd works, offers "significant financial incentives to targeted stores [which would include a bookstore] that take the form of rent subsidies and fit-out grants." For more information, check out this city website or Shop Haddonfield New Jersey or contact Hurd by email or phone, at 856-220-7363.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization; retail