At the January 12, 2009 City Council Meeting, Council will be asked to approve the hiring of a new Retail Consultant. Nearly $12,000.00 will be committed to Assess and Define our local Retail marketplace in order to recruit new retail businesses to the city. The focus of The Fransen Company's work will be to attract new retailers to fill vacant space at the Von's Plaza and to fill "approved but not yet built" commercial space.
I will assume that this would be different information than was received from the 'Buxton Report', which was not released to the public when originally due in August, 08, nor in it's 'revised form' which was due to be released by the city prior to the end of 2008.
The many business closures throughout the valley in 2008 and the new commercial space completed in 07/08 have created a huge amount of vacant commercial space that seems to be the issue for the Redevelopment Agency.
The concern, should be, or at least of equal importance, how successfully our local retail marketplace competes for regional customers and the wicked fluctuation in tourism traffic during weekday and slack months. Changing our shrinking gross retail sales should be the short term goals for the City, well ahead of any plan for expansion.
Simply finding new businesses to fill vacant space will not change gross productivity but may exacerbate the problematic situation local merchants find themselves in today.
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