Gruen & Gruen Report

Acting upon the Village’s adopted strategic priorities; staff has sought the services from an economic development professional to conduct a baseline market analysis and economic development strategy.  The effort is integral to understanding the Village’s post-recession position in the local and regional economy and moves toward enhancing our market position and regional competitiveness through actions which foster business expansion and retention. The analysis and report shall provide the underpinning of strategic and targeted incentives for development and redevelopment toward the goal of expanding the Village’s tax base and development of various geographic and commercial sectors.

Retail Strategies Report

On March 21, 2016, The Village Board of Trustees approved an agreement with Retail Strategies to provide consulting and economic development services for the Village of Antioch.  The services included in the three-year agreement include the identification of retail trade areas, market & retail GAP analysis, other related research and analysis and retail recruitment.

Any successful retail recruitment effort will be a long term effort to recruit the right retailers to the Antioch market. Much of the success of this effort will depend on getting the housing market going again and changing the perception that Antioch is a growth market again.

The market analysis is broken into several sections as follows:

Section l – Provides an overview of some of the current trends in retail and highlights the team members from Retail Strategies that are involved in the economic development recruitment efforts on behalf of the Village:

Section ll – Provides an overview of the specific market research that was completed for the Village. This information includes a three, five, and ten mile market analysis of the trade area along with median household incomes. Additionally, mobile data was collected from the Antioch Wal-Mart which specifically tracked the market for this store and where the residents were coming from. Extensive demographic information is incorporated in this section encompassing the number of households, racial make-up, average household size, and average household income.

Section Ill – Provides specific “psychographic” information pertaining to the Village’s market area. A “Tapestry Segmentation” is provided which breaks down the psychographic profiles of the residents who reside in the trade-area.

Section IV – This section looks at the current market supply within the identified trade area along with existing market demand. The difference between these two variables is defined as the “Opportunity Gap” and provides prospective retailers with the amount of leakage that is leaving the market.

Section V – Provides a specific analysis of the commercial opportunities in the Village of Antioch. First, certain retailers are identified that continue to be in expansion modes for 2016 and other retailers who are in retrenchment are identified. As an example, “fast casual” restaurants are in major expansion mode, while bookstores and electronic stores are in retrenchment. In addition, in this section, Retail Strategies looked at the available sites in the Village which could attract future commercial development. Certain areas have been identified as focus zones for recruitment.

Section VI – The last section highlights the specific categories that Retail Strategies would like to focus their recruitment efforts. This section further identifies “specific retailers” who will be contacted based on the market analysis and the Village’s psychographics. The psychographics of the Village’s market area matches the market that these potential contacts are looking for. In view of the need for confidentiality, Staff has not included the names of the retailers that “Retail Strategies” has identified in this section of the report.

Downtown Economic Development Initiative Report

The Village of Antioch retained Business Districts, Inc. (BDI) in February 2017 to develop the strategic and implementation framework for the Village’s Downtown Economic Development Initiative. This work included three (3) sets of tasks: a review of downtown Antioch’s markets and uses; local outreach, including stakeholder input and surveys; and the development of a strategic approach to revitalizing downtown Antioch that can be readily implemented by Village officials, downtown’s private sector, and Antioch’s residents. This report was presented to the Village Board at the January 24, 2018 Committee of the Whole meeting.