What do your vacant #highstreet units look like on the inside, especially if they’re the long-time, tricky-to-let ones.
Do you know…? Has your tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ been and taken a look. It’d be great to hear if you have and what you thought.
I’m a big fan of the local team – town or BID manager, council planning, building control and, where involved, conservation officers, plus architects, cultural organisation leads and others identified locally – trying this approach rather than think it’s just a commercial #property agent-landlord thing.
To start with it’s much easier to get a sense of the options…
- What could the unit be let to;
- Would it be best split up, uppers separated off, or grounds divided into smaller units;
- What sort of condition is it in. Is the cost to sort that potentially prohibitive, what are the barriers;
- Is #popupshop / ‘meanwhile… use’ an option;
- Is vinyling or wallart / shutterart the only realistic choice for now;
- And importantly, could one or more of the stakeholders help…?
I’d really encourage places with vacancy rates in the mid / high teens or over 20%, and especially those with large, ex- department store or #retail brand, big bank units, to try this.
For sure I’d say it greatly increases your chances of finding a solution and one that works best for the town centre and your wider tackling vacancy strategy.
Go for it…!
