- We’ve seen some small businesses in one Midtown shopping plaza relocate or shut down and ABC27 is looking into why.
- Florida State University's College of Business Associate Professor and Real Estate Expert Mariya Letdin said plazas offer a certain target audience that has changed in the last decade.
- Watch the video to hear from a current tenant and Letdin about the benefits and challenges of being in a plaza location in Midtown and across Tallahassee.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Fit & Functional in Midtown has spent almost a decade in Capital Plaza off Thomasville Road.
Their focus is on restorative health and injury prevention.
“We have clients who are coming out of physical therapy who have post-rehab needs," Sherman Rosier, Fit & Functional's owner said. "But want to be in an environment that can help them get through those limitations, but at the same time get to a higher level of functional fitness.”
Rosier said he made Capital Plaza home because of ample parking and:
"It was just convenient to kind of consolidate in this location," Rosier said.
Florida State University's College of Business associate professor and real estate expert Mariya Letdinsaid plazas offer a certain target audience.
"I need to buy diapers, so I'm gonna go to the store," Letdin said. "You're gonna have those delivered. But if you want to go to a boot camp class, then you're going to go and drive, then stop, and then once you're there, maybe you'll also have a coffee and a smoothie bowl, and then you'll go home."
Letdin is a real estate investment fund faculty advisor and in the FSU College of Business's Department of Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate, and Legal Studies.
"In Tallahassee, we don't really have a retail model driven by foot traffic," Letdin said. "What we have is cars, you know, so a key to success is having sufficient parking because people aren't walking by necessarily."
While Rosier has seen success in his fitness business—others around him in food haven’t been as prosperous— particularly those in food.
"If you're a restaurant per se, coming into the shopping center, there's tons of restaurants across the street, there's you know, up the street, and so forth," Rosier said.
Duck Donuts—a locally owned franchise closed its doors this month—just a few doors down from Fit and Functional.
It wasn’t the first small business to shut down shop in the plaza—a popular chicken spot did the same last year.
"The restaurant themselves or the person in charge of marketing for the entire center has to put some resources, time or money or both, to bring traffic in, and then hope that people like what they see enough to come back," Letdin said.
When looking through the plaza the vast majority had occupants--- the longest being those part of national brand.
Letdin said longevity for national retailers is not a coincidence.
"They're looking for a certain density of population," Letdin said. "And the certain traffic going by their store, and a certain income level of the households surrounding them in a 1, 3, 5- and 10-mile radius."
Just this week Joann’s, a national retailer located in this plaza, announced that it wasn’t closing close any of its over 800 locations despite going through the bankruptcy process in recent months.
Letdin says success for small businesses sometimes comes from being near an anchor store.
"Someone like a Costco is bringing 1000s of people and they see your restaurant and like, sure, I'll try it," Letdin said.
The other, among several other considerations, is having a strong number of returning customers like Fit and Functional.
