Retailers race to cities
Retailers are heading to the cities and they’re often willing to break all the rules they had previously imposed on their operations to do so, according to a detailed story in the July-August 2012 issue of Better! Cities & Towns. Multi-story layouts, smaller footprints, parking on the roof or in the basement, lower ceilings (when using certain older buildings), and custom architecture that faces the street— all are possibilities in this new retail environment. For years, retailers built standard boxes on the edge of sprawl, a little ahead of the market, confident that residential subdivisions would fill up and supply customers. Since the housing market collapsed in 2007, this paradigm has also collapsed as well, leaving retailers with underperforming stores. Publicly traded retail companies need to open new stores continually to demonstrate growth. The best option under current conditions, says retail expert Robert Gibbs, is to open stores where people already live — in cities and first-ring suburbs.
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