The Vacant Shops Academy

A really enjoyable day visiting Brackley & Towcester – two really strong indie towns with #highstreet #retail businesses it’s well worth stopping by to see if you’re in that part of the world (of which more in future posts).

As ever we are especially interested in the opportunities to join them with some nice units to go for, but you’ll likely need move quickly as there’s just a handful vacant in each with, it looks like, interest in a number already.

Meanwhile we spent quite some time moving less than quickly after checking in on the awesome Antique Cellar (where the first image in our set was from). That’s worth a trip here on its own.

Struggling. Ailing. One in the headline. The other in the intro. Both words used to describe the #highstreet by a national media report this week.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe, I was writing notes on 4 #TheVacantShopsAcademy locations:

+ Place 1 has all but halved a 25% vacancy rate in 18 months;

+ Another has seen a headline figure of 30 visibly vacant units at our ‘audit’ in April down to just 7 ‘empty and available’ by September;

+ A third location has no suitable unit for an expanding #retail brand that is keen to be there. It’s worth adding here that it’s far from rare we find brands with requirement lists for places they’d like to be but have no space for them;

And finally, a place that had seen vacancy numbers rising, up to 25 empty units (18% of its total) nine weeks ago, now has 5 of those listed as ‘under offer’ and 2 let.

Also… on the same day as the media story mentioned at the start, Gail’s reported opening its 150th site, the MD of Cornish Bakery announced their 63rd, the Executive Chairman at Loungers said: “Delighted to say we’ve opened our 237th Lounge (& 276th site overall),” and the UK CEO of Søstrene Grene lists 6 maybe 7 new locations as their “expansion accelerates for the final quarter of 2024”. All this in the week WHSmith celebrated “our 50th Toys”R”Us shop-in-shop is now open!” And as Laura Harris can tell you from her brilliant #HighStreetPositives campaign, there’s much more like that.

So what’s occurring….? Well the easy bit is that we’ve still work to do to promote the positives and switch that media narrative.

But how to explain the numbers in our briefings…? Here’s a theory.

There are 4 sorts of place.

+ One that had high empty unit rates but got a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ on the case;

+ Another that attracts brands and indie occupiers and is going well, with proactive and supported agents & landlords making the most of that;

+ A third is smaller places with only a few vacant units that need work hard to ensure use types they draw in for those that remain add to the mix;

+ And then there are the town and city centres that, for a variety of reasons, aren’t (yet) prioritising vacancy at all.

Am I missing a type…? Which one is your place…?

I’d love to hear your views…

The national ‘shop’ vacancy rate is said to be 14%. And has been stuck around that number for some time.

Can we get it into single figures…?

Single figures. Does that seem wildly optimistic…?

I ask the question as #placemaking colleagues are starting to post on what the new government’s approach on #highstreet might look like when it emerges in the form of policy and regulation changes.

So it seemed worth having one last try at suggesting this…

“Ask (and resource) every local authority to report on vacancy numbers twice a year, and work with agents, landlords, businesses, community, cultural organisations, chamber and BID where there is one to overcome barriers to let…”

In other words encourage every place where empty units is an issue to set up a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’.

A number of places we’re working with through #TheVacantShopsAcademy are developing the approach and starting to see the impact it can have.

We’re just back from Aberdeen. A place we think of as a beacon for this working together approach to tackling vacancy. Different organisations there, using slightly varying methodologies, are tracking vacancy rates. And the impact on what was a 25% headline rate on Union Street is significant. Closing on halved on one count. Halved…!

Everyone you talk to there will emphasise that it’s still challenging and they’ve much to do yet, a work in progress but…

…if that’s possible in two years, and a number of other locations we’re working with are seeing reductions too, why can we not aim for a single figures national average.

The answer currently, to be blunt, is that not all towns and city centres are on the same page. Some are still with “it’s just an agents-landlords thing”, leaving vacancy to them and missing the crucial role fellow stakeholders bring. Others are trying the master planning route first, or relying on multi-million pound ‘big ticket item’ spending on local buildings or projects to fix the whole place (will it…?).

Thing is. We know how to do this. Places are proving it. I believe we can get that 14% down. But only if…

We’ve focused a lot in recent weeks on what feels like the huge potential of arts & crafts, creative, culture, community, history & heritage, leisure, education, health and health & wellbeing as go-to options for places tackling #highstreet vacancy.

They feel especially valuable for those with a strong shopping centre that tends to draw any expanding #retail brands or a nearby out of town offer.

+ Town or city centre health service provision is demonstrating now in a number of locations what it can offer in terms of footfall and dwell time;

+ We know from friends who’ve been successful over many years, how much arts & crafts, creative brings to the table in terms of attractive stores, connections with locals makers and a great record in producing spin offs that take on empty units of their own;

+ A number of leisure, including gym, operators are proactive now in taking up space;

+ Extending community involvement is the focus of several high profile practitioners;

+ History & heritage are longer-established – through museums for instance – tho I believe they could do more in smaller units.

What we hear less of is the role education can play. We sometimes see specialists in units offering teaching for various age groups, and there are children’s nurseries in places. There are too, examples of centrally based campuses with others taking on former department stores to add to that.

But everywhere we work with #TheVacantShopsAcademy we ask in our ‘next steps’ whether the local schools or college or university could play a bigger part. How do we encourage the whole ‘live briefs’ conversation to help here…?

Could catering students run cafes, creative & photography groups open up galleries, engineering and design maybe use their skills to fix stuff or share with the less technically-minded. I’m sure specialists in this field can think of other workable examples.

I get that curriculum commitments, staff resources and the like will be a challenge. But…?

It’d be great to hear from #property and #placemaking colleagues who are seeing examples where they are or those in the sector itself who have one already or can see how they might take on a vacant unit…

So we’ve written a ‘how to’ guide to tackling #highstreet vacancy…

…or at least an introduction to our ‘audit, engage, encourage, promote’ approach as we’ve run it or are underway in 33 #TheVacantShopsAcademy locations.

Hopefully it’ll be helpful to town or city centres with empty unit rates in the mid / high teens or even 20+ per cent.

It’s also aimed at places looking to improve their current mix of use types or to find a way to get a small number of tricky long-time vacants back into play.

If any of those is your place, please take a look and let us know what you think.

We also cover the ‘why’ – the opportunity that empty units present, the chance it could mean for a range of different use types to make your offer more varied and your economy more resilient, and the reality that where vacancy is up to those kinds of numbers it’s very likely to get worse if you’re not on the case.

The team at High Streets Task Force have kindly slotted it into their Library of #placemaking resources so it’s easily accessible.

We’re always keen to talk to council and #BID teams who are working on this key metric or would like to, so do get in touch…

I know a number of #highstreet placemaking colleagues are working with an arcade as part of their town or city centre project…

…maybe influenced by its attractiveness as a destination, its #heritage status, the size of its units making it an ideal home for indie #retail and #hospitality, the roof which allows it to be a space for events, activity, performance, outside seating & more.

So it was really insightful on this week’s out & about in Blaenau Gwent to see the transformation being worked by the council team on The Arcade, Abertillery.

A major paint refresh done, smart & informative vinyling reflecting its history and the chance to rent, new collective shop signage to come, and plans to bring one or two of its empty units back into play by offering pop up shop opportunities, as part of our wider #TheVacantShopsAcademy tackling vacancy approach in the town centre.

It looks great and feels sure to have an impact on building momentum in the neighbouring streets.

It’d be interesting to hear from other places where an arcade initiative is at the heart of things.

Over to you…

Wander your #highstreet in the late afternoon or early evening and look up.

How many lights do you see on the upper floors…? Lots, hardly any…?

Do the same a bit later just to check. Same result…?

It’s not very scientific I know, but the idea is it gives you a quick test of what, if any, occupation there is of those upper floors.

Is the ground floor or a separate business using them – maybe for storage or office use. Or possibly, if there are lights later, they’ve gone to residential.

It’s a valuable question for #placemaking and #property colleagues to ask because un- and under-used upper floors is a potential opportunity. 

If you can get them back into play you can adjust the economics of the building, maybe overcome a barrier to the ground floor being let and – from a wider perspective – add footfall to your town or city centre which helps that too.

If this is an issue in your please, especially if you’re on the case with a strategy to put it right, we’d love to hear from you…

We’re really excited to be headed back to #Aberdeen this month to complete the research phase of our Union Street upper floors study with Aberdeen Inspired and the City Council, funded by UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

We’re hoping that the findings will not only add to the impressive strides being made to tackle ground floor vacancy there, but also be useful insights for other town and city centres. 

Watch this (un- and under-used) space.

It’d be great to get some ideas from #highstreet #property agent and legal colleagues on the subject of ‘assignments’.

With apologies to anyone who’s thinking the inner tackling vacancy geek in me has escaped (again…?).

Assignment becomes a thing (in this case) where the tenant of a property leaves before its lease agreement with the landlord is finished and so still has to pay the rent, sometimes for many years.

In circumstances like those we have in town and city centres now, where the market rent is likely lower than it had been when the agreement was signed, the landlord has little or no incentive to move things on to a point where a new tenant would pay less.

We often see agent boards go up as a sign that the tenant is trying to ‘assign’ the rest of its lease ie persuade another occupier to take over.

Where the ‘place’ via the council or BID has a tackling vacancy approach underway we’ll try to broker a #popupshop short term use.

Sometimes we see surrender agreements done but in our experience with #TheVacantShopsAcademy that’s rare.

So this whole situation is difficult and leaves us in a frustrating period with a vacant, often large, sometimes historic, #heritage prominent, typically deteriorating-looking building just sitting there.

Would love to hear examples of this issue being worked through and suggestions from those of you close to these of a more comprehensive way we can tackle it.

Thanks…!

Tackling #highstreet vacancy. It’s not just “an agent-landlords thing”.

Seriously it’s not. And having spent much of the week talking to #property colleagues in 8 of the locations we’re working, you can easily see that. 

If the vacancy rate in your town or city centre is in the high teens or even 20+ per cent, there’s 100% a role for the ‘place’ – councils, BID where there is one, chamber, businesses, community, creative & cultural organisations.

And if you’re just thinking to watch and hope, your numbers may well get worse.

Just to be clear. For sure it’s agents, landlords and the would-be new occupiers who do the heaving lifting on lettings, but – and especially where there are lots of empties – you may not see the results you’d hope for…

+ a small study by #TheVacantShopsAcademy found that on average 40% of visibly vacant units had no agent involved;

+ for landlords there is a lengthy list of reasons why they might not go for a deal;

+ …and even where they do, the outcome may not be one residents or neighbour businesses are thrilled about if it’s ’more of the same’ and doesn’t add to the mix.

On the other side of the story, the ‘place partnership’ members all have something of their own to bring to the party:

+ councils – as many have done – can create grant funding schemes to support incoming tenants with the often high costs of taking on a unit;

+ the BID or Chamber can host a comprehensive listing of available vacant units online so they’re easily accessible for interested occupiers;

creative & cultural or community groups can start attractive and popular #popupshop options in an empty or two;

+ existing businesses will have suggestions about use types that would work here and can help promote the opportunities and new arrivals.

And so it continues. We’re really happy to talk more about how a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ works and why it is number 1 ‘next steps’ suggestion for locations we’re commissioned in.

Can you see how that helps if your place has high and maybe rising empty unit numbers…? Do let us know.