Creative retention strategies will help keep storefronts filled and iconic businesses in place.
(Mountain Lakes, NJ, January 26, 2017) — With the new year, comes an increased focus on business retention in many city centers. This trend, noted in Downtown Idea Exchange’s annual outlook article, reflects both the challenges of recruitment and the greying of business owners in many areas.
Baby Boomers are retiring says Patrice Frey, president and CEO of the National Main Street Center. "We will be seeing nearly 10,000 boomers retiring every day between now and 2019, when the Pew Research Center found that 52 percent of existing business owners will need to transition. Thirty percent will transition in the next five years or before then."
About one third of aging owners plan to transfer their businesses to the next generation, says Frey. Another third is hoping to sell to a third party. "And one third will simply close their doors. The challenge for downtown leaders is to get out in front of that, to work with business owners to help them craft a strategy which allows them to transition these businesses," she says.
"I think this needs to be a dialog with each and every business owner potentially of an age to be thinking of transitioning," says Frey. Downtown organizations need to be getting a sense of what business owner’s plans are. "And if it turns out that the owner plans on shuttering, it becomes the focus of the local downtown district manager to work with the city, and other community partners such as the chamber of commerce, to identify others who might be interested in taking over for that business owner."
Michael Stumph, principal of Place Dynamics, agrees, "I am seeing some impacts of that in the smaller communities we work with. They are losing businesses that have been around for five, 10, or 15 years that were started by somebody in their 50s that is starting to think about retiring. When they do, that business is often lost rather than passed on to a second owner. That’s definitely an issue a lot of communities will have to deal with."
The full Outlook Article is now available online.
###
About the Downtown Development Center
For over 50 years, the Downtown Development Center has acted as the information clearinghouse on practical strategies and tactics for revitalizing the hearts of our cities and towns.
The Group\'s main activities include publishing the widely influential Downtown Idea Exchange and Downtown Promotion Reporter newsletters; publishing relevant books and reports; and operating the DowntownDevelopment.com website.
Website: http://www.DowntownDevelopment.com