It’s time to face the hard, cold truth. Shoppers visit a district to shop. No one ever says “I shop there because the street lamps are AMAZING!” or “Man, you gotta go to that district, those brick pavers are HOT!” Ultimately, people choose to shop, not because of good lighting or decent signage, but because of the retail offerings and merchandise. The research, and not to mention good ole common sense, back this up.

Yet its not all bad news, the balance, or about 30% of customer loyalty, can be attributed to “outside the store issues” – the location, the convenience or accessibility of the district (aesthetics, safety), the look and feel of the district, district amenities (are there activities for kids?), entertainment offerings (street musicians? general ambiance?), retail mix (is there a good balance of stores, a nice place to grab a bite after a day of shopping?), and the physical conditions of the street, etc.

Whenever I share this concept with groups of commercial district managers, I get responses that range from relief to frustration. Relief because I have better defined their role – or better yet the limitations of their responsibilities – but also frustration because it becomes clear that they do not control the majority of issues that affect shopper choice. Yet when you know WHAT you control – and make no bones about it, 30% of a shoppers decision is a big chunk – you can be better at doing your job.

In this competitive environment, your work on that 30% becomes even more critical. It can make the difference in that split decision when a shopper decides whether to turn left or right out of their front door, that is, between spending money in your district versus another.

LISC and MetLife Foundation are seeking nominations for the MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards. This awards program is a great opportunity for communities to receive recognition for their work improving community safety.

Previous winners provide examples of how commercial revitalization programs can partner with their communities to address safety issues that may be affecting the viability of their districts. Commercial corridor-specific winners of this program include King Drive Public Safety Initiative, which focused on maintaining a Business Improvement District along the historic Dr. Martin Luther King Drive in Milwaukee, WI as well as Uptown Consortium, Inc. & Cincinnati Police Department who partnered to revitalize Cincinnati’s Burnet Avenue business corridor.

The awards are the result of a partnership between the MetLife Foundation and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) to recognize, sustain and share the work of innovative partnerships between community groups and police that promote neighborhood safety and revitalization.

The submission deadline for 2012 applications is March 11, 2012. Download the application here.

Awardees will receive:

* Monetary grants ranging from $15,000 to $30,000.

* Case studies about award-winning partnerships to be disseminated throughout the community development and law enforcement industries.

Cash grants will be awarded in the following two categories:

* Neighborhood Revitalization Awards (Five at $20,000-$30,000): These awards celebrate exemplary collaboration between community groups and police that yields crime reduction and economic development outcomes, such as real estate development, business attraction and job growth.

* Special Strategy Awards (Five at $15,000): Community and police partnerships that have achieved significant accomplishments in one of the following areas will receive awards: Applied Technology, Aesthetics and Greenspace Improvement, Diversity Inclusion & Integration, Drug Market Disruption, Gang Prevention & Youth Safety, or Seniors & Safety.

A typical “high street” in England…

In England, “High Streets” are the equivalent of “Main Streets”, and their problems are not so different from our own. Many are marred by significant vacancies, and the recent global economic downturn, coupled with fundamental changes in how people shop, has not helped. In a recent article in the U.K’s Independent, Phil Wrigley, a prominent fashion retail executive called for the “reinvention” of high streets. He goes on to say that “retailing will never be the same again, but there is much to be gained from facing up to this fundamental, and irreversible, truth. In doing so, we might just create the space in which we can re-cast and revitalise our town centre communities.”

Wrigley advocates for shrinking the commercial and retail square footage along high street, and turning these spaces into residential units. There is something to be said for this argument. In many urban areas, commercial zoning has not been updated in decades, and still operates under the assumption that downtown is the regional shopping hub of yesteryear. New commercial square footage, much of it in the form of enclosed malls and shopping centers, has replaced the need for all the commecial square footage that used to be necessary downtown. Yet many downtowns have failed to shrink their commercial districts in a thoughtful way. Instead, the dwindling number of stores are seperated by vacant storefronts – hurting the downtown’s overall image and making it more difficult to attract new businesses. This is the “death spiral” that Phil Wrigley speaks. He suggests that a vacancy rate of 20-30% is the tipping point for vacancies that make it difficult for any community to recover from.

Wrigley’s recommendations are an excellent strategy to prevent further demise of these districts. With more residentail housing comes more demand for retail and services…so perhaps the “death spiral” should instead be called the “opportunity for reinvention” spiral….