How to Get Community Buy-In for a Retail-to-Industrial Conversion

CHICAGO—Retail-to-industrial conversion projects are rare: A data point by Cushman & Wakefield shows that they make up less than one-tenth of one percent (0.073%) of the total industrial inventory.

One reason many of these projects fail to gain traction is they cannot overcome the hurdle of gaining buy-in from the local community. “A community will likely want to keep the retail presence. It will have a hard time believing that the retail presence cannot come back or recover,” Tray Anderson, C&W’s logistics and industrial lead for the Americas, tells GlobeSt.com.

That said, there are such projects underway across the US and while their journey to groundbreaking was different in each case we can assume that some fundamental concepts about marketing and communication were held in common.

Anderson says that the sample size of these projects is too small to draw definitive conclusions but individual case studies do offer some clues on what may work when dealing with a community that wants nothing more than to see their former retail use back in action again.

“You can never assume that people will welcome you with open arms,” he says. So when meeting with local officials and residents be prepared to address all of their concerns in a transparent manner. These include environmental concerns, traffic, noise and pollution.

Communities will also be less in favor for industrial projects because it will mean lower revenues. Here too, it is a matter of the community coming to terms with accepting that a mall is no longer a viable project for that location. They need to realize that while 15 years ago the mall was driving X amount in tax revenues but that right now it is driving zero amount, Anderson says.

Furthermore, he adds, “all of this has to be public, in the open. Nothing should be discussed behind closed doors.”