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Main Street Reimagined Podcast
This is a podcast for dreamers, creators, developers, and entrepreneurs to learn, share, and be inspired to change your community through small business.
Main Street Reimagined Podcast
Episode 50: Downtowns; The Heartbeat of Economic Development with Sean Hughes
Why do communities with neglected downtowns struggle to attract businesses? How can small towns compete with manufactured lifestyle centers? Economic development expert Sean Hughes reveals the connection between downtown vitality and overall community success in this eye-opening conversation.
Drawing from over a decade of downtown revitalization experience, Hughes challenges conventional thinking about economic development. "Companies evaluating your community will inevitably visit your downtown," he explains. "If they see crumbling buildings and vacant storefronts, they immediately question: 'Why would you take care of us when you can't even take care of something that's been here for 200 years?'"
Hughes shares transformative strategies that turned Delaware, Ohio from a downtown with low-rent, subsidized spaces to a thriving district commanding triple the commercial rent rates. The secret? Treating each storefront as a strategic project, engaging building owners in the vision, and creating pathways for new investment.
Most provocatively, Hughes argues successful downtowns should flip traditional thinking: rather than relying on local residents for 70% of business, communities should target 70% from visitors and tourists. This approach injects new money into local economies while creating amenities residents love.
For community leaders, developers, and entrepreneurs, this episode offers a roadmap for downtown success that goes beyond beautification projects. You'll discover how "soft infrastructure" attracts workforce talent, why both young professionals and empty-nesters seek the same downtown amenities, and how to overcome the perennial "parking problem" by curating experiences that make walking enjoyable.
Whether you're reimagining your own Main Street or seeking insights on community development, this conversation provides both practical strategies and the inspiration to turn downtown potential into economic reality.
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#EconomicDevelopment #CommunityGrowth #DowntownRevitalization #SmallBusinessSupport #UrbanDevelopment #CityPlanning #EconomicStrategy #LocalEconomy #CommunityVision #ReviveDowntown #SmartGrowth #PowellOhio #DelawareOhio #EconomicLeadership #PodcastInterview #UrbanSuccess #MainStreetMatters #BusinessDevelopment #CivicInnovation #ThrivingCommunities
It's so much harder for a community to attract the industrial and the office without a properly functioning downtown. And why is that? I mean your downtown should be the core of your economy. It's usually where your government offices are, so it's where a lot of things are currently located that haven't moved out yet, right? They haven't moved to those created downtowns, so they're still there yet, right? They haven't moved to those created downtowns, so they're still there. Chances are that business, as you're trying to locate them in your community, is going to have some sort of. They're going to come into your downtown at some point during the process or other, and if they see that your downtown is crumbling, if it's forgotten about, what does that say about you as a community? Why are you going to take care of them when they move there If you can't even take care of something that's been there for 100, 200 years?
Speaker 2:This is the Main Street Reimagined podcast, a show for people ready to turn visions into realities and ideas into businesses. Hey, I'm Luke Henry and each week I lead conversations with Main Street Dreamers who took the leap to launch a business, renovate a building or start a movement, their ideas, their mindsets and their inspirations, as well as some of the highs and lows along the way. This is a place for dreamers, creators, developers and entrepreneurs to learn, share and be inspired to change your community through small business. Enjoy the show. Hey friends, this is Luke Henry and this is the Main Street Reimagined Podcast. Thanks so much for being with us for this episode. I'm excited for this conversation. I have with me today Sean Hughes. Sean Hughes is with the City of Powell Economic Development. Hey, sean, hi Luke.
Speaker 1:How are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm great. I'm great. We have been doing some walking around today and touring around downtown Marion comparing notes and Sean's a guy I think we met. It's probably been around 10 years ago now.
Speaker 1:Yeah probably.
Speaker 2:Yeah, time flies, but I was participating at the time in the Leadership Delaware program.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And and I was doing downtown development or real estate development, it was nowhere on my radar at the time to be honest, man.
Speaker 2:I own a landscaping business and you know we met you were talking about your role at the city and what you were doing there at the time with the economic development and I think I just found it really fascinating. And you know we had a conversation and you know you were a, you know, fun and energetic guy and I think we connected on LinkedIn and just kind of stayed connected and I've, you know, watched the work that you've been a part of and you know you've seen a little glimpse of what we've been doing here over the last seven or eight years, and so it's great to be able to sit down and, you know, now have a conversation with the things that I've been learning and that you've been doing, and just be able to share some experiences with our guests or our listeners to hopefully benefit them as well.
Speaker 1:I'm very excited to reconnect with you in person and talk about what you've been doing, what we've all been doing here for the last few years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So thanks so much for that. So tell us a little bit. There's probably some folks listening that are like, yeah, I've heard of that like economic development role, but I don't know exactly what the heck those guys do. So why don't you answer that question? So, in your role today at the City of Powell, what are you doing specifically in your role?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we really don't know what we're doing.
Speaker 2:Make it up as we go.
Speaker 1:We do kind of no. I mean, you know, an economic development officer is really the person in the community that's there to help you put the pieces together. We're the organizers, the collaborators, the communicators, the folks, that kind of almost the glue. You know we were talking earlier and I think if you don't have that role, it just makes it harder. You're having to do those things on your own.
Speaker 1:But you know, say, in the cities where I've worked, I've had, you know, very interested building owners, investors, you know people trying to start businesses and whatnot, and then people on the programmatic side and and, and you know, I'm able to kind of look at that potential project holistically and say what if I put this person, this person and this program together, what could happen? And and that's what we do. And if you know, if you have that vision and it all starts with vision right for that community, and sometimes that person actually leads the creation of that vision, with vision right for that community, and sometimes that person actually leads the creation of that vision but if you have that vision you can actually really start creating those and putting those puzzle pieces together.
Speaker 2:Quite honestly, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've got a glimpse of that as we've been doing you know little pieces of that as we've learned to do development and trying to put together potential tenants and projects and financing models, and you know how are we working with the city, with different parts of the project and everything, and I mean that's what you're doing really at scale for an entire community, and so that includes downtowns and the roles that you've been, but also the other parts of the city as well to some extent, and so talk about you know you kind of glaze over a little bit, but I think such an important part of that is the vision and it has to start there, as you mentioned, and sometimes you've been a part of crafting that. But it's not easy to pull together a vision for a community and get everybody. You're not going to get everybody to agree, but even to buy in and really try to to get that buy in from folks and be able to work towards that vision. How has that looked in your current role at the city of Powell?
Speaker 1:I mean, let's face it. I mean, let's face it. I think when people look at downtowns especially, you know they get my age older, when we remember downtowns of yore and downtowns were shopping malls. You know, basically you went down there, you bought a shirt, you bought your coffee, you bought sundries in your downtown. That doesn't happen anymore and probably will never happen again.
Speaker 1:You know, developers are going to make sure that they're going to create the next newest, nicest shopping center where people want to go for those things. So why spend so much time, money and effort trying to compete with that when you can reimagine yourself and that's where that vision comes from is sitting down and really thinking what can my downtown do? Well, who am I trying to serve? What population am I trying to serve? Is it local? Is it a visitation? There's a mixture of those things. And then how can I position myself to be different than other downtowns that are also going through the same process? Right, and now we have newly reimagined or newly created, actually downtowns like Bridge Park and Dublin. I mean, that's a downtown they built from the ground up.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And you're having this over in Heath now they're building a downtown and that's partly because of the Intel project over. That way, they're like, hey, we don't have a downtown, we need a downtown, we're going to build it. So, you know, it really does start with sitting down and involving all of the people building owners and tenants and, you know, community leaders and saying, having the hard conversation. We're not going to be the downtown of yesteryear. What can we be now going forward? Because it really will lead to more success if you're not completely, you know, heading going in all sorts of different directions. Basically and that's what happens is people head in all these different directions instead of saying, hey, let's put all of our effort and money and collaboration and coordination into this right here and this is the direction we're going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, and it could be very difficult. You know you mentioned, uh, new, you know lifestyle communities or you know what I call kind of fake downtowns and you know that are new or out in the middle of a field starting, um, but those are probably easier in some respects because it's like one vision by one developer and yes they have to recruit tenants and different people to be part of that, but they get to set the vision and the direction and they get to build it how they want it, whereas with downtowns, I mean, it really is an incremental process because you have, you know, fractional ownership.
Speaker 2:You know, with all different people, you have people that are new, you know, that have been there for a year, you've had, maybe, institutions that have been there for 50 or 75 years and you're trying to kind of meet the needs of all those different stakeholders in in that downtown community and it's it's really difficult, you know.
Speaker 2:But I think the question that that that I would like your perspective on is why is it, you know? Why is it worth the trouble? You know? Why should there be a focus in a community on rebuilding the downtown? I don't, you know, we certainly believe in it. You and I, we see the benefit. But I think there's still some folks out there that are like you know what's the big deal with the downtown? If we've got, you know, shopping centers and stuff, why do we, why do we even need a downtown? How, if we've got shopping centers and stuff, why do we even need a downtown? How would you answer that, sean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I've been doing this for a long time and I've been on the industrial side office. I've done every part of economic development and, quite honestly, it's so much harder for a community to attract the industrial and the office without a properly functioning downtown. And why is that? I mean your downtown should be the core of your economy. It's usually where your government offices are, so it's where a lot of things are currently located that haven't moved out yet, right, they haven't moved to those created downtowns, so they're still there. Chances are that business, as you're trying to locate them in your community, is going to have some sort of. They're going to come into your downtown at some point during the process or other and if they see that your downtown is crumbling, if it's forgotten about, what does that say about you as a community? Why are you going to take care of them when they move there If you can't even take care of something that's been there for a hundred, 200 years? You know, and that's absolutely the truth. I've had it said to me by companies from all over the world because I have worked, I've been fortunate enough to work in communities that have done downtown's right and have had the displeasure of working in communities that have not done downtown's right and don't listen to the advice and can't get people together to work towards a shared vision, and those communities they falter on the other fronts. I mean, when it comes right down to it, they can't get all these other things that they want. They can't even get the DQ out on their main drag, off of the freeway exit or whatnot, because nobody wants to be there.
Speaker 1:Downtown's do a lot. They attract people, they attract residents to a community right. School's your main driver in regards to that. If you don't have good schools, you can't attract workforce and people. But downtowns also have a huge contributing factor of whether or not somebody wants to live in a community. Some of them live there. Yeah, if you're doing your downtown right, exactly as you are doing it right now, they can live downtown.
Speaker 1:You know, especially now with two distinctly different demographic groups that actually want the same thing, and that's, you know, your young professionals who are right out of college, used to a mixed use development, basically, with the college campus where they eat, sleep, play everything, study, work right there in one location. So downtowns are attractive to them because they have that right. They want that again. And then you have the older generations, who are retirement age, the empty nesters, who they're looking for that same exact thing, because they don't want to take care of a lawn. They just want to be able to step out of their apartment, their condo, walk over to a microbrewery, grab a sandwich, sit at a coffee shop and read a book. Both those groups are looking for the same thing and that's what your downtown delivers. Most of these created communities still can't create that culture and that place where people want to do those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's a great synopsis of the situation overall and I'd never drawn the connection between the fact that college is a mixed-use development I've never thought of it that way and that's why maybe it's especially attractive to that young professional the fact that college is a mixed-use development. I've never thought of it that way and that's why maybe it's especially attractive to that young professional.
Speaker 1:That's really fascinating. It is the equivocal multi-use development. Baby boomers, gen Xers, who are nearing retirement and are empty nesters, are starting to flock to college towns because they have a mixed use environment, they have education, they have cultural arts, they have sports, they have all these things Plus. Usually college towns have awesome coffee shops, they have awesome breweries, they have awesome food All the things that they want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Really fascinating way of way of thinking of that. So again, just to put a fine point on on what you're saying, because I think that a lot of people miss this and maybe a lot of people even don't believe it We've had others that have said similar things on the podcast before, but coming from your experience and your perspective, I think is really carries a lot of weight. And what you're saying is that if some, if there's a community that's trying to attract a large employer maybe it's a manufacturer or a warehousing type place or whatever and they're trying to attract them to their community, they want to know that the place has a nice downtown.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you a story. Okay, so this is, uh, you know, mid two thousands. Um, we're attracting a major international firm to a community I'm not going to tell you which community it was, Um, but I, I had worked with the team to start a brand new industrial park and, um, we had, uh, the CFO flying from California. Okay, he was coming in from Los Angeles and he brought his wife with him and they, you know, flying to John Glenn. They take a limo over to the site.
Speaker 1:We're out in the middle of a cornfield, out of a little itty-bitty town, a village, basically in Ohio, and he gets out of the car. We start talking about the site and all the things you typically do on an industrial site visit. Well, I look over and she rolls the window down and she's looking like she wants to enter the conversation and I'm like, I look over at him, I was like does she want to ask something? And so, emotions, she gets out of the limo, she comes over and she's like so this sounds sexist but it's not meaning to be. But she's like where's the nearest hair salon? Where's the nearest, you know, med spa? Where's the nearest spa? And there wasn't one in that town.
Speaker 1:So, um, you know, she's like well, where's the closest place I can go, cause this isn't going to do it?
Speaker 2:Um, those, those, those things do influence those types of decisions, quite honestly, yeah, Um yeah, I mean, and again and again I've heard this from other economic development professionals that are literally at those visits and they're having those conversations with site selectors or CEOs, that but that's like table stakes. That's the bare minimum. They want to know what are the amenities for our workforce If we're trying to attract executives. Is there anywhere for them to grab a nice meal or a nice cup of coffee or host a client visit or something? Or is there Airbn, like all of these things that they want to know because their quality of life for the employees of that business right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know it's interesting, luke. I mean economic development officials weren't normally involved in workforce. That didn't actually start happening until the mid-teens 2010s that we started getting pulled into that conversation, because it did start heavily influencing where companies located. Before that, if I could get a cheap-a-piece land out in a cornfield someplace, as long as I get utilities there, okay, cool, I'll get the workforce in as long as the community was somewhat in a nice place. However, workforce became more difficult, more difficult, more difficult and increasingly become so. I mean, there's so many that could be a whole nother podcast on itself. Decreasing birth rates you know this that immigration.
Speaker 1:There's so many factors that lead to our workforce shrinking that now economic development officials have to actually sit there and think about this, like how can I become an attractive community to labor force? I got to get the labor force in here before I get the companies right, and most of us weren't well equipped for that. We had to learn that. I came from much more of a small business kind of background and thinking so it wasn't as difficult for me. I ran a chamber of commerce so I was already helping small businesses and helping the towns that they were in. But not all of us had that kind of background. We came either from the state or something kind of went backwards and started working in small communities and it was just so much more difficult to think about all of those things, something that I started calling you know, again in the mid-2000s I kind of coined the term soft infrastructure.
Speaker 1:We always think about infrastructure. You mentioned fiber. You know you need roads, you need water, sewer, electric and fiber. Those are your biggies, right. Well, soft infrastructure is hugely important to your workforce attraction efforts. If you don't have the soft infrastructure, you're going to fall on your face.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what all would you put under that soft infrastructure heading?
Speaker 1:That's the amenities that again going back to that college campus that makes use, development. Those are all the amenities that people want to live. It starts with schools. Schools are the very peak of your soft infrastructure. But then it goes down to services. Do I have the services there to be able to live comfortably and happily Dentists, doctors, lawyers, all that stuff. And then you know really, your retailers, your restaurants, your, you know all that stuff. That's like if I don't have that and I have to drive 30, 45 minutes. I moved my wife to outside of Athens back in the early 2000s, late 90s, early 2000s, and you had to drive 45 minutes to Chillicothe, to Lancaster or Parkersburg for anything, and she was miserable. She came from a city and she's like can we move? And that's what happens. So you've got to start building that stuff if you want people to come live there, stay and contribute to their communities and then have those attraction of the larger businesses.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so critical. So I mean, if there's a community out there, that's that's really kind of starting from the ground up. A lot of you know the advice that it sounds like you would give them is you know, before you start. You know, and so many have this kind of like big whale mentality, right, they're like our big fish, like if we, if we land the, the big manufacturer or supplier or whatever in our town, then that's going to fix everything because it's going to bring all these great jobs and then we'll be able to get the, the nice. You know coffee shops or restaurants or whatever. But you're really saying the opposite, where it's like start, start with your downtown. That's like a lead domino to say you know, make sure that you're fixing up what you have, make it attractive, make sure there's services there, that the basic things again, like a great coffee shop, restaurant, hair salon. You know those places where people are going to look at when they're considering bringing a major business to the community. They want to know that there's those amenities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's absolutely it's absolutely the opposite of what we used to think. And um and again, it comes down to, I think, that the workforce component so you know the way to think about your downtown is it's the no-brainer, you're not building it, it's already there. Yeah, right, most of your buildings, as long as they're salvageable, they're already there. Yeah, they require some reinvestment, as you well know.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, I mean you know, know, you can spend hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars on on these buildings. But if you were trying to build that same structure today from the ground up, what would that cost? Right, and you know. So why not take care of what you already have and build up what you already have? And all the infrastructures there the roads, the electric, everything's there that for the businesses to actually survive and thrive um, just take care of it and spend some time on it. Spend the splash of paint, some money and some marketing and and trying to get the right mix of businesses all those the things that make that downtown successful. Just spend some time on it and that's all it takes for a community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, really good, really good advice. So I want to hear a little more about your, your background. You've you've kind of mentioned a few different pieces and stops along the way to where you've landed today. But you know, economic development professional like seems like another one of those jobs that like wasn't what you wrote on your kindergarten homework that said, this is what I want to be when I grow up. But it's been really meaningful work for you. But how did you, how did you get here? Take us a little bit down the path of you know where some of the stops are along the way and where you, you developed this passion for helping to build communities through economic development.
Speaker 1:Yeah, most of us come from very weird backgrounds. I mean, like you said, nobody really wakes up. You know, kids say they want to be firefighters or astronauts. Right, they don't usually become either. You know, I did not say I wanted to be an economic development official when I grew up, but I meandered my way to that point.
Speaker 1:I started out, you know, I was a journalism advertising management major at OU. Poli-sci minor had some interest in communities, obviously with the poli-sci side. Some of my distant family were very heavily involved in politics and I saw what they were doing in their communities down the Ohio River area and I was kind of, you know, interested in that from them watching their work. But then, you know, I went into marketing communications, spent almost an entire career in that entire career in that, ended up kind of deciding at the end of the day that, you know, working for large marketing firms and making other companies lots of money wasn't really very fulfilling to me. I still like to have, you know, have some passion in my work and at the end of the day feel good about what I'm doing. And so I ended up working in universities. I switched my marketing hat over and started just working, using that for enrollment and alumni relations and those sorts of things. So when I was working at Ohio University, we were building a program that allowed students at the university, current students, to start working with alumni who were entrepreneurs. Okay, and I had already started, you know, I developed a couple consulting small marketing consulting firms that were really just me, maybe one other person, so I'd already started tinkering with the whole small business development thing. So I'd already started tinkering with the whole small business development thing and then when I started seeing these students working with these entrepreneurs and starting to help them with research and marketing and all these things that were helping that entrepreneur be successful, I got really interested in that.
Speaker 1:Didn't really do anything about it at that time but, like I said, my wife said I don't want to live in Athens any longer. So we moved back north to the Columbus area and I moved back to actually my hometown to help with an ailing parent. And then that hometown, their chamber director of like 29 years she was retiring and they called me you know, having interest in this interviewed and ended up being a chamber director. Well, it was really literally two, three weeks later I get a call from the high department of development saying hey, we have a Japanese company coming into your community. We need you to set up the site, visit and show them the site over here. And I'm like, well, what's that got to do with me? I'm a chamber director, so I call my board president up at the time and what did you get me into here, gary? And he's like, oh yeah, we have a contract with the county to be their economic development agency. Oh well, that's nice. What is that so? Baptism by fire.
Speaker 1:It really was. So that's when people like Nate Green and David Zak and some of the old guard of economic development in the state of Ohio, I started reaching out to them and you know, what is this, what am I doing, what's available to me, how can I make this community successful? And learned a lot from those people and really just figured it out and took a huge passion in it and then went from being a you know, chamber director to actually just being an economic development officer for the city of Delaware. Um, and where I was until I I went over to Powell, but, um, I, I, you know, I've always kept that kind of like that small business passion and that's kind of driven me to want downtowns to be really truly successful. Plus, I also saw what happened. You know. I had a community that just didn't care about their downtown. I mean, they said they did, but there was no action and you couldn't get the building owners or anybody to move. It was just like it was standstill. And what that did to that community meant, you know, on their industrial attraction side there was nothing. Nobody wanted to be there. It didn't matter what infrastructure they invested in or anything else, it just wasn't working.
Speaker 1:So, you know, when I went to Delaware, I saw the awesome bones of a downtown you know high vacancy rate and and lack of investment in the buildings and whatnot. But there were great bones. The city had already done a street beautification process project and whatnot, but kind of stopped there and it's like, well, you know what, I've learned my lesson, I'm going to implement it here. And fortunately we we had a very strong downtown Main Street organization that was kind of kicking off, still somewhat in its infancy. We had willing building owners that had kind of gone through the fire themselves and they're like something's not working here.
Speaker 1:We need new ideas, we need somebody to drive this. And it's like, you know, know, things really started coming together. And that's when, honestly I mean when downtown started coming together again our industrial park saw a new life because people are coming, businesses are coming in. It's like, wow, this is, this is amazing. Yeah, this is a real downtown. This isn't like some sleepy small town usa out in nebraska that nobody's going to. This is like a real, actual downtown that people want to spend time and money in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's incredible and I mean you know we've seen that pattern in communities that we've studied and of course you know Delaware being kind of close to home here, I mean I've seen that personally as well over the years. So when did you?
Speaker 1:what was the year that you started in?
Speaker 2:Delaware 2013.
Speaker 1:2013, then you were there through 23.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was there for about almost 11 years 10 years, 11 years, okay so, and I mean you saw a lot of, a lot of growth through that time, for sure, in that downtown and so, uh, I mean it's been a model for a lot of downtowns that have looked to bring prosperity. And so let's talk a little bit about the recipe for success. Some of the building blocks that you saw come together. I mean you mentioned willing building owners, the Main Street organization, and you wanted to try to help kind of throw some gasoline on that fire. And you know you wanted to try to help kind of throw some gasoline on that fire. So what were some of the programs, initiatives, relationships that you came in and were trying to implement to accelerate that progress?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was really bringing the people together. Like I said, the building owners. We started having regular building owner meetings just with the building owners to discuss issues they're facing and things they wanted to do and trying to instill our vision on them. And then other groups, the retailers and whatnot. We had again the Main Street Organization. That gave us a conduit to try to get those folks together on a regular basis and again talk about vision and what we're trying to accomplish and the types of businesses that we're trying to bring in to help, uh, draw on more foot traffic for them.
Speaker 1:Um, so those were the really the first two things, but then it also got down to um, you know well, some of these building owners have been here for a while. They don't have the desire or capacity to start reinvesting in their buildings. So what can we do to maybe give them an exit strategy? And we weren't saying you guys are horrible, you've done horrible things. Most of them had done very fantastic things in trying to get the downtown going and they were subsidizing small businesses and whatnot to be in their buildings. But you know, they were done, they were tired, and so we had to get the next round of investors in. So that's when we started working with the real estate community and whatnot and trying to teach them.
Speaker 1:You know what we were trying to accomplish, what was our vision for the downtown, what we were trying to accomplish, what was our vision for the downtown, and then have them help us focus on those businesses that we wanted actually in each storefront, and we did treat every storefront as a project. It's like the storefront needs to be this. We're going to go get this, we're going to find somebody that wants to start this and that's what's going to go in there, and we're going to throw the resources at that to try to make sure that's happening. Um, so that when we started seeing some, some success with that, I think that really started attracting the the again, the next round of building investors like yourself that they came in and said, oh wow, um, I well, I mean let's, let's, let's, let's put in dollars and cents, right? So when I got there, you know the rent was in the mid sixes per square foot per annum. Okay, you can't make much money off of that Right?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:That's why I say the. The building owners were subsidizing small businesses. When I left it was up near 20, which was making the buildings profitable. And I think when the new investors, the new building owners, started seeing the rent starting creeping up, that really encouraged them to not only buy the building but actually invest in that building. Right, right, and we were also very careful. We did lots of research and started building very strategic relationships to get that next wave of building owners to come in. We didn't want a building owner from some other state who was going to be not there every day and not care about our community. We wanted somebody who was local, who saw the results of the work every day and was willing to come in and spend the time, money and effort to help us all be successful and be part of that team. If you will and I mean you go down there today. You mentioned Jared Jablanc earlier in our conversations today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had him on the podcast.
Speaker 1:Jared is a key figure there. I mean he came in and bought a 30,000 square foot building in downtown Delaware. If it had just been five years earlier, he would have never touched that building. There wouldn't have been any reason to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I mean it takes a lot of money to do these projects.
Speaker 1:You know that well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I surely do, and it's interesting hearing that progression and how you've seen it. And again, I think this is prescriptive to some other communities where you know you've got buildings that are in kind of you know, maybe they're stabilized but they're not in like very great shape. They're not very attractive for someone to bring a retail or restaurant concept into. They're going to take a lot of investment by the tenant which oftentimes they don't have the ability to do in order to make them something really special that's going to generate, that's going to make money to make money. And so you have this very vicious cycle of like, low rents bring the wrong tenants, make the buildings not very valuable, and you know it's this sort of unvirtuous cycle of you know challenge, whereas if you can get, you know just a catalytic project or two or three and you know some vision and people working and rowing all in the same direction, now you can.
Speaker 2:Somebody steps forward. We we often call that kind of a patron investor that is goes first and puts money into something to make it nice. Now they're going to have to charge more rent, but they're hopefully going to attract a concept that's going to be profitable and makes that whole thing work, and then the next one happens, and then the next one happens, and then then the snowball is kind of rolling and it sounds like that's kind of the process that you saw come together and you helped catalyze with just trying to bring those people together and kind of paint the vision for what was possible.
Speaker 1:I mean there's a lot of faith risk trust involved right For the building owner of faith risk trust involved right for the building owner. I'm not saying this because I think churches and lawyers and real estate offices are horrible things, but that's what you usually see.
Speaker 2:come into your first floor downtowns, right, the ones that are failing when the rent's cheap and they're not very inspiring spaces.
Speaker 1:They're not inspiring spaces, but for the landlord that's easy. Rent right. I mean, churches pay yeah, they usually. Some of them will pay a year in advance on the rent. That's awesome for a landlord.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:But is it what you need downtown?
Speaker 1:No, I mean again going back to your vision. Maybe it is, maybe that's all you want downtown. I don't know if that would work, but you have to go back to the vision. It all starts with that and I will tell you, I mean, that's where I think my background in marketing communications came into. My economic development work is I also had to study human psychology for years and years and years, because that's what we use as marketers, right? We had to understand how people thought.
Speaker 1:The one thing that is just true across the board I don't care what part of the country or the the world you go to is people are more likely to take for granted what's in their own backyard. Yeah, right, um, you know, I, I could go to that restaurant in my downtown and my backyard once per year and that makes me all oh, I went and I, I, you know, I patronized that place, I contributed. It's like, no, you contributed once per year. That's not going to make them successful, right? So what you see is that after a place is new, they've been there At first, everybody, oh, that's the new place, I got to go there, right. But again they start taking it for granted and then, all of a sudden, your local patronage starts declining for that business for a lot of reasons, but mostly it's just that taking for granted, let's call it that. So what are you going to do to supplement that, to make sure that business is successful?
Speaker 1:Well, that's where the model has to shift. Actually, I got in an argument with a market analysis guy the other day on this very fact. He's like well, 70% of your local, your businesses should, 70% of the patrons for your local business should be your residents and 30% from elsewhere. It's like no, no, no, no, no, flip that, flip that script. It has to be 30% of your business comes from your local patrons and 70% is coming from elsewhere.
Speaker 1:Wow, and that's really hard for communities to understand because, especially government, we're always like our main role is to take care of our residents. Right, it's to make them happy, give them amenities and services and whatnot that's going to make them want to live here and stay here and be happy and be successful. Well, think about it this way Even if I'm a government official which I am can I offer my residents better amenities if I start bringing the 70% of new cash flow into my community, right, right, so in Powell right now, we have one of the biggest attractions in the state of Ohio. We have the Columbus Zoo, right yeah.
Speaker 1:One of the top five zoos in the country. Yeah, fantastic, two million plus people. On the other side, we have 10 million people coming into Polaris Shopping Center to shop every year. Most of those are tourists.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:They're not locals Interesting. So there's over 12 million people and we've never taken advantage of that. We always have said well, our downtown businesses are going to survive because the residents are fairly affluent and they're going to be there and they're going to shop and they're going to eat. And right here, fairly affluent, and they're going to be there and they're going to shop and they're going to eat. And right here, cause that's what people should do, right, yeah, I mean, I love my residence, I love my neighbors cause I live there too, but the fact is I have to bring new money into the community, otherwise people are not going to survive, and that that has proven time and time and time again. I don't care what community is, it's proven time and time again.
Speaker 1:So we are taking on a strategy right now through our CIC, we're spending marketing dollars with our zoo or with the Convention and Visitor Bureau to target people that go to the zoo. How do we get them while they're there and then follow them after they leave so they can come back to our community and spend money and time? And then we have to start attracting the right mix of businesses that will be important to those people family, entertainment, food and retail, kind of in that order really. But go back to my earlier question. You know, am I providing better services and amenities to my residents now?
Speaker 2:Yes, I am Right.
Speaker 1:But I'm doing it with somebody else's money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a really interesting way of thinking about it and I think, again, that's really helpful for communities if they can crack that code. And I think, again, that's really helpful for communities if they can crack that code. And I mean, that's obviously easier said than done to attract people from outside of your community to come in and also trying to, you know, re-attract or stay relevant to your local community, because I mean, that does provide a base of revenues and incomes to these places as well. So, yeah, really interesting, get my wheels turning. Have you, you know, brainstormed other ideas or seen other ways of doing that in other communities where they're, you know, doing a good job, you feel, of bringing people from outside in as visitors?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I mentioned Miller's or, excuse me, miamisburg, ohio, to you a couple of months ago. They don't have, I mean, except for the local scenery and you know, rivers and trails and whatnot, and there's some softball diamonds and sports parks down there and whatnot, but there's not a main attraction like the zoo. But they've built this downtown that is attracting people from at least all over southwest Ohio. You go down there and all hours of the day and night there's lots of foot traffic. They've got the right mix of businesses. They've done great with their streetscaping. The buildings are fantastic, it's walkable, it's safe. You want to be there, you want to.
Speaker 1:And it was funny because a wayfinding professional once told me I was interviewing them for something. And they're like you know, really your job with wayfinding, with signage, is really get them to stop, get them to park their car, get out of the car and then curate their experience. And that resonates with me every day since I heard that it's like let's curate their experience. I hear that in my head over and over again as I'm doing projects let's curate their experience. It just I hear that in my head over and over again as I'm doing projects let's curate their experience, and that's what I think what you're trying to do here in Marion. First, I think you have to find that anchor. You know what is it that's going to bring people here and then build around that you know. You mentioned, you have the historical.
Speaker 2:The Harding sites. The Harding sites here which has a draw right.
Speaker 1:People love history, they love those types of tourist facilities. So what do you do to attract the history buff into your downtown? You can even thematically you know, from here on out all your businesses have some sort of like presidential or history type name or whatever that is but trying to draw that together and make that work for your downtown, for your community, and then again, anything you're doing off those visitors is going to benefit your residents and it's all secular, it's all secular.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's all secular, yeah, yeah. Yeah, those are some great ideas. I appreciate that. Let's, before we wrap up, I've got to talk a little bit about one of our favorite topics to discuss, everyone's favorite topic to discuss, and that's parking, sean. So you know we were we were kind of joking earlier as we were walking around that that's, uh, you know, no matter what community you go to, uh, there's always a contingent of people that are opposed to, you know, even trying to go downtown because of the perceived lack of parking. And, and so you know, you've been part of some communities and you know a couple of your most recent communities, I happen to know, you know, are, you know, because they're popular. Parking is challenging sometimes. So how have you, you know, kind of gotten in on that conversation? How are you helping building owners, public officials, entrepreneurs, you know, navigate this conversation about parking?
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, we've been hearing this topic since the dawn of time, I think. When dinosaurs were here, people talked about parking. I don't know, and weren't we supposed to be in all self-driving cars right now, where they just drop you off and they go like drones?
Speaker 2:I thought miles away. Yeah, that's right, drones.
Speaker 1:I would ask, that would be awesome. Um and you've heard this before Every person you've interviewed parking's perception and um, yeah, you can have an actual parking problem. Most towns I have seen have not had a true parking problem. They've had a perception problem. So when you really start diving down into again it's that psychology from marketing I love to know what makes people think and why they say things they do and you start doing surveys and whatnot on parking. What do they normally say about parking? Have you, have you heard any themes yourself?
Speaker 1:I mean it's always that there's nowhere to park yeah, but even getting past that, like you and I were talking about this earlier, like so I could go to easton and I going to walk further away than if I'm in downtown Marion to what I want to get to.
Speaker 1:And it's not. People always tell you well, it's a line of sight issue. They can see where they're going. Well, at Easton, I can't see where I'm going. At Polaris, I normally can't see where I'm going. I'm going to park and I'm going to walk. What have those places done that we're not doing? And we just talked about this curating the experience. It's not a, it's not really. There's a little convenience factor into it because we have become a shopping center society, strip mall society, let's call it that, where people want to residents, residents want to pull up in front of a store because that's what they have been able to do since the 1980s, um, and they want to be able to continue to do that. That's kind of fading. I think with some of the upcoming generations they understand that's not feasible, um however desirable or desire.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're kind of getting back to where, like, walking is a is an amenity, not a, not a deterrent. You know it's like oh, I like to walk, I want to get some steps in, like it's a nice day, like you know those types of attitudes.
Speaker 1:Walking, biking, scooters, other forms of transportation, are so important, especially downtown, right? Yeah, exactly, and the younger generations, I think, are going to keep pushing for that. But there's also let's go back to that whole tourism thing right, and drawing people from elsewhere in to spend money. Those folks don't have nearly the desire that residents have to want to park right next to what they want. To go back to what I talked about with curated experiences Get me someplace where I can stop, drop my car in a safe location and then curate my walk to where I want to go. Yeah, and that's what those shopping plazas and, let's say, built downtowns Bridge Park, whatever, easton that's what they've done. If you think about it, you're parking in, usually a parking garage or something very, very you know, stagnant vanilla, right.
Speaker 2:There's nothing attractive about a parking garage.
Speaker 1:But once you get out of your car you know where you need to go to get to the ground floor, and then there's some sort of experience to get you around. They're making it entertainment visually attractive. Good signage, yeah, good signage, but like you've got the painted fiberglass cardinals out here.
Speaker 1:It's those things that I think people want to walk around and explore you know, what if I could find five cool places before I get to the place I'm actually trying to go? It's like wow, that just made my trip so much more worthwhile. That's awesome, Rather than just getting to where I'm planning on going, leaving that place, getting back in my car and leaving. You didn't give them much of an experience, right, and we all know this We've heard this over and over again especially with young generations. Everybody's into experiential retail. That's bleeding into restaurants and everything else that we do now. So your downtown has to be an experiential situation to provide them a good experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, curate it. Yeah, yeah, that's really good. It really wraps back to kind of what you said very early in the conversation, which was, you know, we can't necessarily compete with all the you know the new things, the latest, the greatest, the suburban sprawl, or you know even things that are, you know, bigger cities or whatever. Like there's always going to be something bigger and better than what we can offer. But we can offer something unique, we can offer something experiential, something unique. We can offer something experiential and we've got to find what really resonates with, with our place and what we do well and, and you know, what we can dream up together and and make happen. So, uh, so I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, man, sean, I mean we've we've already spent a few hours more than a few hours today uh, together and uh, it's been really great and we could keep recording, I'm sure, for another few hours, but I probably will leave it there to respect your time and make sure people listen in. But you've really offered a lot of insights that have been super valuable to me and, I'm sure, to others that are listening. So I want to thank you very much for that. This has been really great. I've jotted down quite a few different notes of things that that you've said that have been great ideas, and even some things that you've said that have affirmed some of my thinking and also challenged some of my thinking to to keep working on so.
Speaker 1:We have to keep challenging each other in this and learning from each other. We're all in this together quite honestly. I mean, it's sometimes it feels like downtown versus downtown, but it's really kind of us versus the new developments, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, and particularly when you're mentioning this idea of, like you know, trying to attract people from outside, you know, really, you know it benefits all of us if people are getting on, you know, kind of smaller community downtown exploration circuits, right, I mean it's beneficial, you know, when people are traveling to explore other downtowns, because that means more of them are going to land in each of our different communities.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's really great and I agree and I've met so many people along the way and a lot of them have been on this podcast and some others that we haven't yet but, um, there's a lot of people doing really good work, uh, to make this happen, and it's really important. I think you made a great case today for the fact that, uh, to have a thriving downtown that's attractive is going to really bolster that community overall, uh, in so many other ways, uh, so we want to keep making sure that we're supporting those people that are doing that work. So, yeah, if somebody you know really resonated with what you're sharing today and wanted to maybe connect with you individually, where would you point them to do that, sean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're certainly welcome to email me. Shughes, s-h-u-g-h-e-s at cityofpalus, all spelled out all together. That would be probably the easiest way to find me, and I'd love to chat with people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great, great. Well, thank you again for offering your insights here. It's been super valuable To our listeners. Thank you for tuning in once again. Hopefully you found a lot of value from this conversation. I truly believe that you will. Lots of different folks could benefit from from hearing some of Sean's message today and, uh, we'll be better for it. So I hope that you'll uh tune in again next time when we have another great interview. I'm really looking forward to next week's as well. Here and uh, I will see you on the flip side there here and I will see you on the flip side there. Thanks for listening to the Main Street Reimagined podcast. To learn more about Main Street Reimagined Henry Development Group or our work in downtown Marion, ohio, please visit MainStreetReimaginedcom. If you want to connect or if you know someone who we need to interview, shoot us an email at info at mainstreetreimaginedcom. Until next time, keep dreaming and don't be afraid to take the leap.