Downtown Greenwich Balances Retail Development with Community Needs

GREENWICH, CT-While Manhattan is arguably the town center for the entire New York metropolitan area, destinations such as Greenwich, CT have viable, self-supporting retail districts that brokers say provide a welcome alternative to regional malls.

Annette Healey, a director with Insignia/ESG who specializes in retail, says the popularity of regional malls is waning because the “one-big-vanilla-shell” concept, while economical, “interferes with the organism of street life. People relate more to low-rise buildings where they can shop, pop in here and there and have it be more friendly.” She says there is a “yearning for the ability to move from one kind of shopping environment to another quickly and without having to make so much of a commitment.”

Greenwich, Healey says, “is the quintessential town center.” Shoppers spending an afternoon on Greenwich Avenue can “pop into Saks, go in and out, and park your car in one place, outside.”