“Pop-up shops could play a bigger part in our evolving highstreet…”
Every town centre tackling vacancy project I worked on before setting up The Vacant Shops Academy featured a pop-up shop, at least one.
Wantage, our first project, where the number of empty units reduced from 23 to 3 in 18 months, had 3 pop-up units in different parts of the town centre.
Unless they have one in play already, considering starting a pop-up project is among the ‘next steps’ we share with all the locations we’re commissioned on tackling highstreet vacancy. That gives a sense of how valuable we believe they can be.
So, to try encourage greater take-up, we’ve written a new addition to our Academy guides and briefing notes series which explains the ‘why’ and ‘how’ but, importantly, does that from a place rather than pop-up occupier perspective.
Getting empty units back in play on a short-term, temporary basis (hence pop-up or ‘meanwhile… use’) is a well-established and proven option which can have multiple benefits for the place as a whole…
- It can help kick-start a town or city centre-wide empty shops project
- brings vacant units back into play
- improves their look to the benefit of the place and neighbouring businesses
- adds to the current offer with the potential that has to support existing businesses on footfall and dwell-time
- allows the place to prioritise uses that add to its current mix and so helps attract additional customers / visitors
- delivers on the resident / business wish list of ideal new occupier types you’ll draw up at the start of your tackling vacancy project
- gives you a source of positive media stories at a time when your place might have negative perceptions because of the vacancy issue.
But there are also, importantly, benefits to the businesses and organisations that pop-up there, and these in turn count as positive spin offs for the town or city centre as a whole.
If you are running a pop-up shop project in your place it’d be great to hear how it’s going…
