Set up a temporary store, restaurant, cafe, art gallery, etc., just for the busy season or even one day for a special event. I’ve also heard of school buildings used as a product warehouse, a youth scout council headquarters, a business incubator with commercial kitchen, and work crew housing.ĥ. Harveyville, Kansas, made a creative conference space and artistic residences out of an old school. Lots of small towns have old school buildings sitting empty. Then they used that money to buy another empty building. They renovated it, and then sold it to a business. Then they used the money to buy another empty building. That’s how the Project Waynoka Foundation turned an empty building into the downtown library in Waynoka, Oklahoma. Renovate, then lease or sell the building to the city or municipality. Ron Hirst has some suggestions to make incubators work in small towns.ģ. One building is housing seven retail businesses, all owned by women.Ģ. Update: Here’s an example from Safety Harbor, Florida, where a building was shared as a co-operative. Shared spaces can also include a community of diverse businesses like 1440 Main Street. One downtown building gives life to many new retail stores. It can be a space carefully designed for compatible small retail shops, like Cathy Lloyd shared from Washington, Iowa. Make a space that multiple businesses can divide and share. Here are a dozen more ideas for filling an empty building:ġ. The extension service in Oklahoma provides retail gap analyses, and I’m betting other states have similar services. If you want to learn a lot more about gap analysis, check out this paper (PDF) from Oklahoma Cooperative Extension Service. To see a dressed-up version of a gap analysis, look at this one from the City of Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada, done by a consulting firm. Or an existing business could add new merchandise to meet those needs. A new business could start in any of those categories, and know that locals are already spending for them. Local people are spending in those categories, just not in Waterloo. See all those negative numbers? Those are dollars flowing out of the community. Look at this example from Waterloo, Illinois. If we can see what your local spend on a category, versus how much of that is spent locally, we can spot opportunities. The best place to look for new business opportunities is in your retail leakage or gap statistics. Several prospective buyers asked Dina what they should do with the buildings or what kind of business their town could support. Dina asked me for some ideas. “We are now in the process of selling two of those properties,” Dina said. They invited folks to tour the buildings and asked for offers. Rather than hide them, the city decided to show them off. The city government owns 9 vacant properties, including a hospital building and a couple of houses. Photo by Becky McCray.ĭina Jackson is with the City of Harriman, in Tennessee, USA. The Project Waynoka Foundation has taken it on to renovate. This empty building in Waynoka, Oklahoma, is in luck.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |