The Vacant Shops Academy

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.

Morale and confidence and positivity are vitally important for the #highstreet.

They impact resident enthusiasm for going into their town or city centres, decisions by existing businesses when their lease renewal comes up and of would-be new occupiers and their #property agents, plus the crucial choices made by potential inward-investor landlords and owners.

But we have (still) a dominant national media narrative promoting that ‘death of the…’ perspective. It’s damaging and now I think we can confidently say, misleading.

To be clear, it’s challenging still and we’ve loads to do yet, but there’s so much good stuff happening too, and I think you can start to make the case that places with a high vacancy rate are those that are yet to set up a ‘place partnership’ to lead on tackling it.

All of this explains why I’m a huge fan and supporter of the brilliant work being done by Laura Harris at LH Analytics Ltd with her #HighStreetPositives initiative. 

The latest newsletter update is due out this week – full of news on lettings, openings, and positive projects – so do please connect, follow the page on here, subscribe and share your own local projects to the ever-increasing #placemaking community which sees this as a force for good in turning that narrative to the benefit of all our places.

Thank you…!

I may have said before how much I love to see #streetart when out and about on tackling #highstreet vacancy commissions with #TheVacantShopsAcademy.

It’s especially the case when you happen across one unexpectedly and it’s sooooo vibrant.

This we found looking right before crossing a road in the attractive market town that is Rugby in Warwickshire.

Lots to like here. An interesting mix of buildings, a strong group of independents, a variety of incoming businesses with others in the pipeline…

…and a range of ways to reflect its history and heritage.

Sculpture, pavement installations, wall art, banners and more.

It prompted me to ask #placemaking colleagues: “what’s your favourite example of highlighting the special features of your town or city centre’s past, its stories and characters etc…?”

Do please share…

Image: The Squirrel – Rugby, by Michael Batchelor.

How many of the visibly empty units in your town or city centre actually have a tenant still paying the rent…?

It’s something we come across a lot on #TheVacantShopsAcademy tackling #highstreet vacancy commissions, and it’s typically one of the trickier issues to overcome.

To explain.

It means the tenant business or organisation left while they still had time on their lease agreement with the landlord. So they’re still paying rent, and sometimes are due to for many years.

With rents often now lower than they were when the agreement was signed the landlord has little incentive to progress things so the unit stays empty.

In some cases we see an agent’s board on the property but it’s typically on behalf of the tenant trying to, what’s called, “assign” the remainder of the lease.

I’ve never counted how many like this we’ve seen but it’s not rare and that assignment is really awkward to achieve.

So as a tackling vacancy-focused ‘place partnership’ you’ve a sometimes prominent, often deteriorating unit that may stay that way for ages.

It’d be interesting to hear from #property colleagues who have seen cases of this solved, as it can be.

🥊 Neighbouring towns. What are they…? Rivals…? Competing for customers…?

Or. Could they work together…?

🤝 Highlight each other’s strengths where they’re different. Promote each other, campaign together and encourage their businesses and town centre organisations to do the same.

It might be one has #history and #heritage buildings, a brilliant line up of #indie businesses. The other could be a service centre. It has the banks, or brands or a choice of pharmacists, opticians, phone companies. Whatever.

🪜 It might, as an example, mean the town which is dominated by indies could split its brand-sized vacant units rather than try recruit those itself in the old clone-town mode. Specialise.

We first explored this idea on a #TheVacantShopsAcademy commission with two pairs of locations in South Gloucestershire, and had a reminder in Essex where a single BID covers three locations: Brentwood, Ingatestone and Shenfield.

This week a quick visit to meet #highstreet #property colleagues in Nantwich set me wondering if there’s a potential ‘places partnership’ with Crewe.

🚈 They’re just eight minutes apart by train so close enough to consider.

🤳🏽 I’d be really interested to hear from places where you’re promoting jointly with neighbours, or think that maybe you could…

I’m going to add #history and #heritage to the list…

…the one that goes: arts & crafts, creative, culture, community, leisure, education, health and health & wellbeing.

🎬 It’s the list of business and organisation use types that we suggest #TheVacantShopsAcademy tackling #highstreet vacancy locations explore as potential options to take on empty units, as an addition to #retail, #hospitality and services.

Why…?

🏭 Well we’re used to seeing the past of our places reflected in events, through #streetart & sculptures, on blue plaques, interpretation boards and the like.

But could they go an extra step, and take on a vacant unit…? Maybe as a mini-museum if the current one has more to display than it has space for or it’s away from the town centre. Perhaps the unit could host exhibitions of artefacts or displays of images – collections of shops how they used to look are certain to be popular. Or other examples I’ve yet to see but #placemaking colleagues are working on.

I was reminded of the thought during an inspirational visit to The Crewe Heritage Centre – which is itself a short walk from the town centre, so emphasising the idea that a connected presence there would benefit both…

…and on a prior train trip to the attractive neighbour town of Nantwich (of which more in an upcoming post).

🤳🏽 It’d be great to hear your examples of history and heritage playing a proactive part in town and city centres #Evolving…

For reasons I cannot really understand I always like to see a clock when out & about with #TheVacantShopsAcademy on a tackling #highstreet vacancy commission or just visiting.

Would be interested to hear if you have one or more on a commercial building in your town or city centre.

🔧 Do they work…?

Are they looking the best they can be…?

📖 Is there some sort of accompanying information board to explain their who and why…?

Do you make a #placemaking feature of them…?

And I’m especially keen to know if anyone has a recent, modern one or are they all a thing of the past.

🤳🏽 Would love to see some examples and hear their stories…