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Shopping Centers Today -> May 2001
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ICSC HELPS FORGE PUBLIC/PRIVATE ‘ALLIANCES’
Norris R. Eber, SCSM, CLS, couldn’t believe his ears when a Chicago alderwoman told him: “My storefronts are 125 feet deep and 15 feet across.”
“She was talking like a developer,” said Eber, executive vice president of asset management and acquisitions for Wheeling, Ill.-based Joseph Freed & Associates. “She was understanding our problems and becoming more effective.”
That conversation might not have happened even seven years ago. But either on their own or through programs such as ICSC’s Alliance meetings, retail developers and public officials increasingly have come together to find ways to improve their communities. Unlike smokestack industries and manufacturing plants, retail development is a source of clean revenues for the cities, said Patricia J. Werne, project manager for the Mississippi Department of Economic and Commercial Development.
Over the years, some officials, such as the mayor of Meridian, Miss., John Robert Smith, have taken it upon themselves to meet with the retail development community, sometimes with spectacular results (See story, How Miss. mayor became an ICSC deal maker). Some communities, from Chicago to parts of California, have made independent efforts to create a neutral ground for retailers and developers to come together and sort out their needs.
“Some towns have been members of ICSC for 10, 15 years. So we said, with open arms, ‘Let’s discuss the mutual challenges of retail development. The business is maturing; there are fewer sites, and those are more challenging,’” said Eber, an ICSC divisional vice president.
California’s long history of redevelopment also has brought cities and the business community together.
“There are something like 430, 440 cities in California, and we have more than 300 redevelopment agencies,” noted Stephen Hopkins, president of Newport Beach-based Hopkins Real Estate Group, and an ICSC trustee. “The cities here work closely with a group of consultants; it’s a closer alliance than anywhere.”
It is inevitable that the concept of city-business dialog should have become a national phenomenon.
“We are often the largest taxpayer and employer in a municipality; it seemed to me worthwhile to talk to people responsible for economic issues,” said John T. Riordan, ICSC president and CEO. “[Their] job is to raise money; we’re a large source of the money.”
ICSC held two symposia in 1996 to acquaint local officials with the developers and retailers looking to enter their communities. Those meetings evolved into the first ICSC-sponsored Alliance meetings, held in the fall of 1997. The early meetings largely were organized and conducted by developers seeking to educate public officials about their needs.
“This is still evolving. These communities want to talk to retailers, but they are finding it’s difficult to get to them. So they’re learning how to talk to developers,” who can get to the retailers, said Tony Brown, SCSM, CLS, president of The Pelican Group, Mobile, Ala.
More recently, the meetings have become joint ventures between the developers and the municipalities, with discussions going well beyond the basics.
“Prior to the Alliance Program, ICSC had government officials as members, but they didn’t really have a place at the table,” said James E. Maurin, chairman and CEO of Stirling Properties, New Orleans, and an ICSC divisional vice president. “Now, that stakeholder has taken control of the program.”
For instance, the government side ran a recent meeting in Biloxi, Miss.
“It was the economic development directors telling us what they need,” Maurin said.
Alliance Programs have continued to evolve. Where meetings once consisted entirely of education-oriented panels, now deal making is often part of the day.
Seven Alliance meetings were held in 1999, 10 in 2000. At press time, 10 full-day meetings, usually including a deal making, were planned for 2001.
In another evolution, mini alliances, which last just two or three hours for the discussion of only one topic of interest, were introduced last year.
As a side benefit, more than 1,000 government officials and community representatives have become ICSC members. And 19 cities, towns and communities will exhibit at a special Municipalities Court at the Leasing Mall at ICSC’s Spring Convention this month in Las Vegas.
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