The Vacant Shops Academy

How many of your town or city centres have empty units that have been like that for ten years or more…?

Are you on the road to getting them used again…?

I was lucky as part of a visit to Bath for a catch up with the council’s regen and BID teams, to take a quick trip to the town of Keynsham and look in on just such a project…

“After 18 months of working on this project, we started with 1000sqm of ground floor commercial space on Temple Street in Keynsham that had been vacant for over 10 years.

“These have now been transformed into beautiful high quality spaces for new tenants including a Dance school, Pilates Studio and Play Cafe.

“We finally reached completion after a 6-month construction phase and the spaces look amazing!

“Now down to the tenants to turn these units into even more beautiful community spaces…!”

For sure, based on our tackling highstreet vacancy work with now 46 locations, we know that there can be lots of factors contributing to units being long-empty, and different barriers to overcome in getting them back in play.

It’d be great to hear other examples from place leaders and managers of very long-empty units where you are being re-purposed and re-let…

One of the (many) joys of this job is getting to spend time with the really good people working hard and together to make their places the best they can be.

And so to the city of Bath to spend an insightful day with members of the council’s regen team, its BID and two of the creative leaders behind an imaginative retail approach that could, hopefully, be taken to more places soon.

If I’d strolled the centre that sunny summers day on my own I would have enjoyed the awesome set of heritage buildings, the stunning river scene with its famous bridge and weir, the strong national brand retail and hospitality group and range of independents and all the neat placemaking touches that may seem minor but contribute much to the whole.

But I was lucky instead to do that walk-see in company and so draw on local experience and understanding.

Our focus was on three major projects:

• The ground-breaking planned new fashion museum;
• The upcoming return for the city’s historic department store as a fashion, beauty, home and lifestyle brands destination;
• SOMER – a sustainable fashion store, immersive learning environment and community space by Bath Spa University.

…but the conversation drew on much more of the work that’s needed behind the scenes to bring sometimes long-empty and difficult buildings back into use, how to maintain an offer that delivers both for a resident community and sizeable visitor numbers, and – especially interesting from my tackling highstreet vacancy perspective – how some of the brands have fitted in here, including adjusting their shopfront signage model to accommodate conservation values and made what might look like non-ideal building frontages work for them so they can take one of the limited empty unit options in this much-desired location.

“Ah but it’s Bath”, you might say. “Not many places like that who could usefully learn from it.”

And I’ll be disagreeing. Take an opportunity to listen in as I did to the back story of these projects: making yesterday’s stories work today, repurposing your large heritage buildings, creating an offer that suits those dual audiences, introducing and securing buy in to the many small placemaking features that make this place look the best it can be, and so on…

Lots to like. Plenty to share. Much that’s transferable. Definitely worth you being in touch.

Really enjoyable and heartening first visit to our latest tackling highstreet vacancy commission…

Kirkcaldy is our 46th location for The Vacant Shops Academy and we’ve now made a start on the ‘audit, engage’ stage by mapping empty town centre units – the first step towards understanding their backstory, building a clear picture of the vacancy situation and agreeing how to move forward.

There’s lots to like in a town with a civic & cultural ‘quarter’ and its heritage buildings that greet you along the walk from the railway station, the High Street itself and, as you emerge beyond that, onto the waterfront and harbour-side.

Especially encouraging was the chance on this trip to be part of the regular meeting of Kirkcaldy Property Network.

You’ll know how strongly we believe in having a positive, proactive, ‘place partnership’ to lead locally on efforts to reduce the number of empty units and improve the mix of uses. It’ll be particularly important here given the fact there’s a number of very large former brand retail store units among the vacant set.

Already a few months in with relationships between different members building, it was great to see the levels of interest in the challenge around the network, and the enthusiasm for playing a part in what follows as well as the extensive skills, experience and connections in the room.

Our ‘audit’ will put some exact numbers on the challenge, and no one here has any doubts there’s much to do, but there seems to be a confidence which I 💯 share that it’s do-able.

It’d be good to hear from other town and city centres how working together is helping tackling your vacancy issue…!

• Our image is of the stunning artwork on Kirkcaldy High Street by Scottish mural artist & designer Kerry Wilson.

“You could aim to halve your headline highstreet vacancy rate in 18 months. Some places will go further, faster.”

If you’re a council or BID team thinking to start the tackling vacancy journey or could use help on tricky challenges you’ve encountered if you’ve started already, do drop me a message…!

That “halving” headline is something I’ve said here before, but it feels very well worth repeating, especially after a week of really encouraging conversations with local tackling vacancy teams, some a way into the journey, others taking first steps.

Why…?

• partly because of the difference reducing the number of empty units you have and improving your mix of uses makes to the vibrancy and vitality of a place…
• …the positive impact that has on existing businesses who benefit when there are new reasons to draw people in, extra footfall, extending dwelling time;
• …and our experience that lettings encourage others to consider investing there too, so creating a momentum that builds;
• it can also help deliver on core national policy objectives: strengthening growth, increasing employment (especially among younger people) and boosting ‘pride in place’.

But it’s more than about the numbers. Our ‘place partnership’ approach is also about exploring ‘alternative’ / additional uses to take on empty spaces alongside retail, hospitality and services to add variety and the ‘experiential’ that’s such a big part of current conversation.

The other key feature is the emphasis on working together. Not just leaving this to agents and landlords but engaging and involving businesses, community, cultural organisations, council(s), chamber, BID if you have one and others identified locally, to take take up the challenge, together.

We know it works. Very different places in changed circumstances ten years apart have done it, others in between took teens vacancy rates into single figures, towns we’re working with now are on that journey too.

If we can inspire more places to join them, it’ll make a huge difference and we will, finally, get the long-stuck national headline vacancy rate into single figures too.

What do you think…?

Broken windows, graffiti, old signage, patchy hoardings, peeling paint, crumbling roof, bushes growing out of gutters and so on.

What do the empty units in your town or city centre look like…?

Do they look a state…?

Or…

Has the landlord or agent made them look the best they can be while work continues to get them let.

Has the place – the council or BID maybe – taken the initiative and sorted some vinyls or other options to improve things.

Perhaps, as our friends in Aberdeen are doing (and we feature in the image above), a community volunteers group led by Our Union Street is out regularly with brushes and paint and cleaning to spruce them up.

It maybe seems a minor part of the tackling highstreet vacancy process but it’s important and makes a difference.

There are enough downsides to empty units for the place. If they’re in a poor way it’s worse…

• They add to a negative perception among residents;
• Dismay visitors;
• Attract ASB;
• Provoke negative media stories;
• Increase the risk of your place featuring in a national ‘worst for empty shops’ list;
• Make things harder for existing businesses, increasing the chance that
  they’ll leave also;
• Discourage inward investment by would-be new occupiers.

So let’s draw a line. Commit as places to doing what we can to make empty units looking bad a thing of the past.

Yes there’s a cost. It’s also true that we say to local teams we’re working with on tackling vacancy that getting the empty units back in play is a priority, but as colleagues who’ve done it will tell you, this helps.

It’d be great to hear what your town or city centre is doing on this…

If you were allowed just one word to describe your town or city centre, what would it be…?

Do please let me know yours.

It’s not easy, huh…?

The challenge wasn’t my idea and it’s not one I’d come across before until what was an insightful, enjoyable, encouraging meeting in Cinderford to share thoughts about the town as it is and priorities moving forward.

The question set me thinking about some of the other locations we’re working with local teams on tackling highstreet vacancy, what word we’d get to for them and more importantly the words ‘place partnership’ members there would list.

A really interesting extra talking point to emerge from the meeting was what suggestions might you get if the question was asked of residents and business owners on local social media platforms.

Similarly if you did a visitor survey of people in your town or city centre for the day or overnight, what single word would they use to describe it.

Now you might think that placemaking is far too complex a subject for these answers to be much, if any, use but having experienced it here and reflecting on the 20+ one words that emerged, I do think it’s interesting.

Over to you…

“It’s a good idea. Seems obvious. So how come we hardly if ever hear any examples.”

It is the option for a place – a town or city centre – to commission its own commercial property agent to work on reducing the number of empty units it has and improving the mix of uses.

To be fair, when we’ve aired this with agents before we’ve not been met with too much enthusiasm, rather the response has been a list of reasons why it wouldn’t work.

It’d be great to hear what property and place leaders or managers think.

Here’s the rationale…

• On average (based on The Vacant Shops Academy data from locations we’re working with on tackling highstreet vacancy), more than 50 per cent of visibly vacant units don’t have an agent instructed to work on getting them let. Lots of places have a higher figure;
• There’s a lengthy list of reasons – all seemingly commercially sensible from their perspective – why a landlord might not be proactive about getting empty units a new occupier;
• If a potential tenant gets in touch with one agent they’ll typically showcase those in their portfolio but not likely many if any others, so if they’ve nothing suitable the search has to start again rather than cover all the potential options a place has;
• The fee an agent secures for a successful letting might be around 10% of the first year’s rent – for small units in some places that’s not a huge amount and so might limit the affordable effort…

…it also explains why potential pop-up occupiers say they often find little interest from landlords and agents for the idea;

• On the type of uses, the focus may be on securing a rent-paying (or business rates-covering) tenant rather than one that adds to the mix the place already has. This can mean the number of empties drops by one but residents and existing businesses might not think it’s done much to boost the place.

There’s more, but I think just these help make the case for the ‘place’ to try commissioning its own agent.

So go on. Tell me why not…?

Which brands do you most want to see taking up empty units in your town or city centre…

…and importantly, are you working, as a team, to try recruit them…?

Typically there are a number of ways places develop their list:

• checking what they have currently and what’s missing;
• consulting residents and existing business owners on what they’d like to see;
• comparing with neighbouring and similar places to see what they have that you could;
• looking out for agent and property director requirements lists where they set out target locations for new openings.

There’s also a fifth – so far less well-used route – a location planning, data-based one – which we definitely think more could adopt.

Identifying your targets and then working together to recruit them is one of the key tasks we set for ‘place partnership’ teams in locations we’re supporting on tackling highstreet vacancy…

…on the basis that it’s more likely to deliver lettings that add to the mix and are welcomed than if you think of this as “just an agent-landlord thing”.

It’s also worth emphasising that brands are only one of three potential go-to options, the others being independents and uses off our ‘alternative’ / additional list. But the approach is the same.

It’d be really interesting to hear what the targets are for your place and the steps you’re taking to try attract them…!

Two more brands published on Friday a list of locations they’d like to open up in.

One listed 19 locations plus another 20 inside the M25. The other featured 22 UK possibles plus 17 more in Central or Greater London.

Is your town or city centre on either list…?

Are you looking out for these ‘requirements’…

…and, importantly, are you geared up as a ‘place partnership’ to connect with agents and property directors when they share these, and do you have details of all empty and available units in your location so you can quickly send them suitable options.

As it’s often the case that the ‘target locations’ list is longer than the number they’ll actually open, this can be a competitive thing, rewarding places that are quick off the mark, most proactive and supportive.

It’s one of the roles we identify for local ‘place partnership’ teams we’re supporting on tackling highstreet vacancy, alongside the work they’re doing to identify vacant units, understand why they’re like that, how the barriers to let can be overcome and which partner needs step up to make that happen.

We’re really interested to see some of the different ways they’re going about that too.

It’d be great to hear from other council and BID teams who are on the case…

“It just feels like a really important time to be having these positive but also very practical conversations about our high streets.”

So, reflecting on another insightful, inspiring, heartening day with HighStreetPositives LIVE.

Hosting a three-hour event with 8 panellists, 3 speakers, a ‘fireside chat’, intro and reflections sections, and a head full of questions, timings etc, means it’s taken a little longer to draw out takeaways than the many shared here already over the last 24 hours or so.

Lots of great stuff happening in Bath and neighbour towns but also in a number of other places that contributors spoke about, projects and initiatives to learn from and tailor or adjust so they work in your town or city centre.

For me – along with a number of individual ideas to pick up with colleagues in the days ahead – two things stood out.

First a sense that in the conversations before, on the walking tours, at the break, after we’d closed and in messages since, there’ll be a huge amount built on this in a way it’s harder to do via the online version. So I’m glad that for all the plusses of Teams calls and the like, we still make time to meet IRL.

Second – and this was especially encouraging thinking about our tackling #highstreet vacancy work and the emphasis we put on having a ‘place partnership’ on the case. How much better, stronger, quicker and more sustainably we make progress working together.

In that room – and clearly very much part of the Bath story – we had attendees from business and community, council colleagues, the BID, creative, cultural & heritage organisations and importantly (as they’re often missed out of ‘town board’ type conversations) agents and landlords, as well as a range of specialists who bring particular skill sets to the table.

Not everywhere has this kind of positive, proactive ‘place partnership’ (yet…!) and it’s something we’d love to see become the norm.

It’d be great to hear positive working together examples from your places…

Thanks Laura Harris, thanks to everyone who played a part in a(nother) memorable day…!