Shopping Centers Today is the news magazine of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
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48 S C T / M a r c h 2 0 1 5 incubation effort ultimately yielded benefits extending beyond the prop- erty itself. When the firm's Avalon mixed-use project opened last Octo- ber, it had a raft of chef-driven con- cepts already in place. "Because we had already built these relationships with Atlanta chefs, it was much easier for us to interest them in Avalon," Gillespie said. "Avalon has been a foodie desti- nation from the very beginning." Street smarts Until last March, the corner of Clinton Avenue and Jefferson Street, in Down- town Huntsville, Ala., was mostly ho- hum. After all, a multistory self-storage building had occupied the entire block for several years. "When you walked by the self-storage unit, the vanilla-colored doors were all pulled down," said Chad Emerson, CEO of Downtown Hunts- ville, Inc., a nonprofit that works with the city on revitalization projects. "It just killed the street experience." Today the ground-floor storage units are all leased by incubated retail concepts such as the Alabama Fashion Alliance boutique and Giggles-n-Stuff, which sells doll clothing along the lines of American Girl. (The upper floors of the building still comprise self-storage space.) Downtown Hunts- ville, Inc., approached the landlord about leasing all 10 of the ground- floor storage units for retail use. The so-called Clinton Row retail incuba- tion project held its grand opening last March. "The idea was to create these little micro-retail stores," Emerson said. "If you lift up your door, there's the store. Next thing you know, we've got a waiting list of 40-something peo- ple for those 10 units." In fact, demand for space at Clin- ton Row, which won an International Downtown Association Merit Award last year, has been so strong it has even spilled over to adjacent streets, Emer- son says. There are now about 20 new retail businesses in the area, occupying some 2,500 square feet. The list includes Alkemi Beauty, Carrie's Kitchen and Christina Wegman Fine Art, to name a few. "The goal is to let people test-drive their retail concepts to see if they work in our market," Emerson said. "If the con- cept is viable, hopefully it can grow into a permanent location." A few things had to be ironed out be- fore Clinton Row could become a real- ity, Emerson says. First among these was to secure the cooperation of David John- ston, landlord of the self-storage unit, and of the city officials whose approval was required on permits for the nontra- ditional space. "Fortunately, the land- lord is a big Downtown advocate, and the city had an open mind," Emerson said. A scientific approval process was needed too, for the prospective retail- ers. "We work with a college of business to make sure we have properly scruti- nized the [prospective tenants'] business plans," Emerson said. "There are some businesses where we like the concept, but they just don't have a strong-enough grasp of what they're doing." Downtown Huntsville puts a pre- mium on incubating tenants that spur face-to-face interaction with custom- ers. Here Emerson points to Giggles- n-Stuff. "The owner is in there in her 10-by-10 unit, and she'll let the girls bring in their dolls to try on the doll clothes," he said. "It's something you can't get on Amazon." Clinton Row also benefits from having a municipal parking deck right across the street. Thus far the project has been hugely helpful in revitalizing the area, Emerson says. "It has brought C h a d E m E r s o n , C E o o f d o w n t o w n h u n t s v i l l E , a l a . C h i C a t a t l a n t i C s t a t i o n