I am a retail development consultant with 30+ years’ experience. I worry about the impact the proposed new zoning code would have on our Village Centers and its retail shopping environment. The proposal reflects outdated mid-20th century thinking instead of 21st century retail realities.
The fact is the current generations of shoppers (known as Millennials, Gen Z-ers, and their parents, The Boomers) are big supporters of neighborhood brick-and-mortar retail. They want to shop in small, one-of-a-kind stores with local flavor in smaller shopping streets that remind them of Europe. They want the kind of pleasant shopping experience that cannot happen with bigger, modernized and homogenized spaces on streets that lack distinctive local character. They also want shops that cater to their neighborhood needs.
Shoppers will walk, but they also do drive to other Village Centers, park, then walk and shop to destination stores and restaurants. Shoppers from all over the region enjoy shops and restaurants in Jamaica Plain, Wellesley, Concord, Newburyport, Rockport and Waltham, just a few of the destinations that provide a village-esque “Shopping Experience.” Retailers seek spaces where the shoppers are.
Newton has enormous retail potential if the shopping environment does not become “modernized” with boring chain stores. New buildings with large retail spaces are expensive and not wanted by the shoppers nor retailers who are small, market focused with highly curated merchandise.
Hopefully Newton will keep its Village Centers feeling intimate and local and not incentivize tearing down buildings in the Village Centers. Retaining current merchants are a key feature of neighborhood life. Newton should know each Village Center and help to strengthen its economic base with new buildings that complement each Center’s size, scale, and character. Otherwise, people will simply go elsewhere.
Carol Todreas
Waban
