Take a few minutes to fill out
this 19-question survey about the Harrisonburg area that will ask you about yourself, your internet use and our shopping habits. This survey is being used to determine what gaps exist in what is being provided by local retailers, with the hopes of using the data to attract further retailers to our area and to enhance existing businesses.
Read on from the Daily News Record....
Survey Seeks Data To Lure Retailers
Olive Garden is here. Whaddaya want next?
That is one of the questions Harrisonburg and Rockingham County economic development officials want area residents to answer over the next 13 days to help provide data for a regional retail market analysis.
Community Land Use + Economics Group, an Arlington firm with experience in economic analysis, strategy and implementation, and business development, is compiling data local leaders hope can help them lure new retailers to the area and enhance existing businesses.
As part of that effort, city and county residents are being asked to complete a 19-question survey themselves, including internet use and shopping habits. Those completing the survey, available at surveymonkey.com/r/CVCRW6Y, are eligible to win tickets to Massanutten Water Park or $50 in downtown dollars.
The survey is being conducted to find out what local retailers are and aren't providing that residents want.
"What we really want to know is, ‘Are you going elsewhere right now for retail services? Who are we losing to other markets? Why are they filling a need Harrisonburg is not filling?'" said Peirce Macgill, Harrisonburg's assistant director of economic development. "We want to find out what businesses residents are going elsewhere for, because they should be a target for the commercial brokerage community."
Michele Bridges, Rockingham County's economic development and tourism manager, said the information gathered can be used to let certain businesses know they have a market here or encourage existing retailers to carry specific items people buy elsewhere.
"It's really just to strengthen our retail experience here in the Harrisonburg-Rockingham County area," she said.
The analysis is a public-private effort that leveraged a state grant.
The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development awarded the city a $15,000 Building Entrepreneurial Economies planning grant for the study. The city, county, James Madison University and Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance combined to provide a $7,000 match, and the Shenandoah Valley Small Business Development Center has provided technical support.
In addition to finding out what local residents are buying elsewhere, Bridges said Rockingham is focused on information that can be used in the development of three major shopping areas: Stone Port Retail Plaza, the commercial space at Preston Lake, and the retail frontage at Rockingham Park at The Crossroads.
Those three commercial developments in the county's urban growth area represent significant, immediate opportunities to land retailers and grow Rockingham's tax base.
The Harrisonburg market's demographics are skewed, Macgill noted, by the high concentration of college students.
The city's median income, a key data point many retailers use in determining where to set up shop, is lower than the state average. That's deceiving, though, because many college students have cash to spend, so the market's strength is hidden somewhat by the top-line number.
"It's a matter of how can we better tell the Harrisonburg story beyond household income and what the traffic counts are," he said. "A lot of times, we're not on radar [of some retailers] to get a serious look."
Capturing information on what local residents are buying out-of-town, Macgill and Bridges noted, can be shared with city and county retailers that might be able to add the items to their shops. If area business already have the items, they can be alerted that they're losing part of the market.
The survey is the final stage of the analysis data-gathering process.
Already, Macgill said, about 800 JMU students have completed a similar survey. The consultant also spent two days here last month meeting with stakeholders and checking out the community.
The CLUE Group officials, Macgill said, left Harrisonburg with a potential marketing and development angle for Duke's Plaza.
"They were pleasantly surprised by the number of what appears to be immigrant-owned businesses in Duke's Plaza," he said. "They were intrigued at how we could take advantage of that, the immigrant niche businesses."
The final report from CLUE Group is due in late July. Macgill said an implementation grant has been applied for that would allow efforts to begin immediately to leverage the study's information into growth opportunities for local businesses.
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