The Challenge

Communities that want to grow their retail sector have two basic approaches. The community can assume the role of a developer. This is a difficult path, and communities differ widely in the amount of experience and talents available to manage the development process. Communities that don't have qualified personnel can take the second approach, which is to make their trade areas attractive to experienced developers.

City leaders in Marion, Ind., decided to take the second approach. Their challenge was to attracted developers to a community that had been declining for about 10 years due to industrial plant closings. Marion also faced a geographic challenge. With a current population of about 35,000, Marion is situated less than an hour's drive from two much larger cities, Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. City leaders needed to prove to developers that Marion was a city worth investing in.

The Solution

Soon after Marion's largest plant closing, in 2004, when almost 1,000 people were put of of work, Marion leaders jumped headfirst into a quest to regenerate jobs in their city and improve the quality of life for residents. Their first step was to hold a symposium, where local players met and learned from state and national figures in economic development. Their next step was to attend the annual ICSC (International Council of Shopping Centers) conference, where they happened to meet a Buxton executive, Joe Fackel. Realizing the value of Buxton's services, Marion commissioned them to perform its CommunityID assessment.

Solid data was provided that supported retail development in several areas of the city. Using this third-party validation of their city's retail potential, Marion leaders set out to lure developers by assembling sites for development, sometimes by buying land and other times by purchasing options on property.

Another enticement to development was the creative use of state economic development statutes. In one instance, Marion leaders converted the area inhabited by an outdated mall into a CRED (Community Revitalizing Enhancement District) and worked with the mall owner to renovate and expand the property.

Marion also created Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts and used the proceeds toward options in areas where they wanted retail growth, specifically along the interstate and near the university. At one 15-acre site, Marion optioned land and used a site-specific TIF to put in infrastructure. The center is opened and 90 percent leased. Marion leaders also assembled land and created TIF districts for larger sites, including a 170-acre multi-use development that is now under construction.

Marion leaders searched for the best developers and investors for these projects. Some projects have been completed by local developers, and Marion officials have traveled as far away as Taiwan, South Korea and Japan to talk to investors.

In addition to assembling land for development, Marion made sure developers could easily work with the city. "We tried to cut any extraneous layers of government processes," says Jay T. Julian, Director of Development Services, City of Marion, Ind. "We try to make it easy and cost-efficient to get into a project and easy for developers to do what they need to do from a jurisdictional prospective."

The Result

The result is a variety of new developments that include retail shops, restaurants and a car dealership.

The Buxton data helped open doors to developers who may not have shown interest otherwise, Julian says. "We thought we were hiring them to bring in specific "boxes," but we realized the value they brought was in externally validating some of the thoughts we had about ourselves."

Julian says that developers responded favorably to the unbiased and current data from Buxton. "Their data is so much more valuable than just Census numbers, which don't show the growth that Marion has had in the past two to three years. Buxton gave us material validated by a nonbiased third-party."