Turning around a Retail Core on a Dime at the Boyd Collection

Many communities think big $$$s when they consider revitalizing their Town Centers but this doesn’t have to be the case. With the right ingenuity all can be done very inexpensively so you don’t break the bank.

The key to Town Center revitalization is understanding the principles. What is it that you want to accomplish to attract residents to your retail core and how can you make it happen with what you have?

The greatest challenges for the Boyd Collection like most of Mercer Island’s Town Center were lack of retail mix, activity, walkability and public parking. The first of those challenges retail mix was accomplished by having a property owner ready to work with retail to attract a nice cluster of eateries, La Fête Pâtisserie Française, Sano Cafe, Barrels Wine Bar and Island Treats. This was coupled with some standout existing retail, Hair Excel and Clarke & Clarke Art + Artifacts along with other shops that gave residents a reason to visit.

Since retail at the Boyd Collection understood that 70% of all first time shoppers are attracted by curb appeal, they quickly went to work. Island Treats got employees to weed and create new artwork on city property along the street, Clarke & Clarke Art + Artifact pulled together a team to paint a wall mural at a retail spot under reinvention so instead of looking empty it now looks exciting, Barrels Wine Bar set out a few bar stools with a one of a kind “bicycle” table and Home Collaborative placed nice teak tables and chairs along the walk for customers to sit and socialize. All retailers at the Boyd Collection understood the importance of window displays, especially Island Treats and Clarke & Clarke, that catch the eye of everyone passing.

All was great, but still the block lacked activity. To this end Barrels Wine Bar added an outdoor dining area to accompany the outside dining areas they, La Fête Pâtisserie and Sano Cafe already had directly in front of their shops. This was done by borrowing a few bollards from the Mercers, a few used wine barrels and movement of a few planters to create a “parking-park” dining area. To help out a couple of residents jumped in to purchase a few tables/umbrellas for the Boyd Plaza to extend La Fête Pâtisserie and Sano Cafe’s dining options as well and to give seating options for customers waiting to be served at Hair Excel, Barrels and Island Treats.

Once the plaza was decked out residents started coming, to sit, to chat, to purchase a drink or snack, to socialize with family or friends. This meant excitement, and with it, residents had a reason to walk by each day to see what was happening.

The Boyd Collection still lacks enough viable shared public parking for customers to place their cars but they have more than other parts of Town Center and like Tabit Village Square, their customers seem content for now with waiting in line for one of the limited angle parking spots in front to come available.

The thing to note is that except for the new donated tables/umbrellas on the plaza, pretty much everything else was done with existing materials, used wine kegs, old flower pots, construction plywood, borrowed bollards, ... This kept the cost down and meant limited (or no) expense to the city.

Yes, more does need to be done, especially to 27th Street SE / 76th Avenue SE which discourages walking and makes it difficult for Town Center residents to visit the Boyd Collection on foot. This street will always limit Town Center success until fixed. (The center lane needs to be removed and parking needs to be added to the street to make it more crossable and walkable.)

With the new activities, some advertising was beneficial but it was doable with retail Facebook and Instagram Pages along with customer word of mouth without the need for a costly advertising campaign. (This is almost always the case when the core audience is local residents, which there are more than enough on Mercer Island for a retail core larger than exists now.)

Key to understanding is that your focus has to be on residents. “If your residents won’t shop in your Town Center, neither will anyone else.” Retail mix is of vital importance and this means city codes have to allow for this to happen. If your community has outdated strip mall parking restrictions, they must be removed to allow a nice mix of eateries. If your community has overly burdensome regulations and taxes preventing outside dining and use of public spaces they have to be removed as well. (In the case of the Boyd Collection, regulations that were preventing much of what was needed were partially ignored but this shouldn’t be the case. For our Town Center to be successful, codes need to be corrected so everyone can win without the need to step over the line.)

Lack of public parking and poorly designed Town Center arterial streets will always limit success. This can partially be corrected with a Parking Management Program but not enough to bring back the whole retail core until the City finally redesigns arteries to bring residents “to Town Center”, not past Town Center. Designing a vibrant Community Third Place does “not” require expensive Traffic Engineers or special renovations requiring the pouring of concrete. In fact Traffic Engineers will most certainly doom any retail core and expensive renovations get in the way of minor adjustments needed along the journey for complete success.

It is important to understand that Town Centers retail cores are more successful today than at any time since the1950s. For them to fail, you have to be trying. All successful Town Centers have 20 essential ingredients in common. They are easy to learn but it is nice to have someone to assist that has been through the process of turning a “Town Center” around and knows the intricacies to making that happen. You can’t be all things to all people but you can’t be successful at all without retail merchants involved and committed.