Robert Gibbs will describe the findings of his study of the Santa Cruz retail market and the implications of the study for retailers focused on improving the sales of existing Santa Cruz stores. Gibb's study includes analysis of the area’s customer-base and lessons learned from around the U.S. and the world about how to expand gross sales of individual stores under conditions similar to those found in Santa Cruz. The study’s uses include:• Evaluating the Santa Cruz market including who the existing and potential customers are and how the psychographic/lifestyle profiles of that market can be utilized to improve sales.• Informing individual businesses in their efforts to increase sales, target their marketing, and improve their business plans.
Gibbs and his colleagues, doing business as the Gibbs Planning Group, analyzed a wide range of data as well as interviews with local merchants, property owners, city staff, the Chamber, and customers to project the overall potential for growth of retail sales in the area. The report will provide estimates of opportunity in an array of retail categories. It will also discuss the characteristics of various customer segments and how retailers can grow their business in those categories and customer segments.
The study is also intended to inform changes in governmental policies and community investments to improving retail sales. Gibbs will present these elements of the study to the Santa Cruz City Council at their September meeting. The City will make this 100-plus-page report available to the public after the final document has been received – currently expected in the week prior to the council meeting.
In Gibbs’s prior visits to Santa Cruz, sponsored by the City of Santa Cruz Economic Development and Redevelopment agency (RDA) and the Chamber, he has enthusiastically argued that the Santa Cruz retail environment is remarkably good: “Structurally, Pacific Avenue is among the best downtowns of its size anywhere in the U.S.” But he has also observed that “Santa Cruz retail is currently performing far below its economic capability.” Based in part of Gibbs’s preliminary work, the RDA sought a retail market study upon which actions by the City, property owners and retailers to improve the City’s retail performance could be based. The Gibbs Planning Group was selected by the RDA in a competitive process to produce this study for the City. Initial drafts of this detailed analysis and report confirm Gibbs’s initial observations.
As a result of funding constraints imposed by the California Legislature and pending litigation on redevelopment agencies throughout the state, the Santa Cruz Area Chamber has arranged to bring Gibbs to Santa Cruz to present these findings personally with support of sponsors Barry Swenson Builders, Bay Federal Credit Union, Mesiti-Miller Engineering, Redtree Properties, Santa Cruz County Bank, and Santa Cruz Seaside Company
About Robert Gibbs
Robert Gibbs is considered one of the foremost urban retail planners in America. For more than two decades, his expertise has been sought by some of the most respected mayors, renowned architects, and successful real-estate developers in the country. Profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Urban Land, Gibbs has, writes The Atlantic Monthly, "a commercial sensibility unlike anything possessed by the urban planners who usually design downtown-renewal efforts." For the past 25 years, Gibbs has been active in developing innovative yet practical methods for applying modern trends in commercial development to more than 300 town centers and historic cities here and abroad.
Gibbs has lectured throughout the country and has contributed articles to numerous books and publications. For the past 12 years, he has taught "Urban Retail Planning" in the Executive Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Among the American cities that have consulted Gibbs are Alexandria, Atlanta, Cambridge, Charleston, Chicago, Denver, Knoxville, Naples, Portland, and Seattle, as have the states of Florida and Oregon.
Don't miss this important retail workshopJoin us September 28, 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., at the Museum of Art and History Auditorium, 710 Front Street. Registration is $15 per participant. SEATING IS LIMITED. Please register today.