You should build something great in your city. 

Regularly I hear about the need for fewer chain stores and restaurants and having more mom & pop local shops. People will call or email asking, “why don’t we have …….” 

Our cities are starving for great PLACES!

Sure we have wonderful housing. We have our major grocery stores and restaurants. But we’re all craving that 3rd place in our lives outside of the home or office. We want that place to meet with friends on a weekend to listen to live music or play games. We crave a safe place to just walk around and people watch. We desire iconic places to just sit and relax and enjoy being outside. We want to walk into a store where we know the shop owner and they know us. We’d prefer to eat at a unique local place where the owners’ kids go to school with ours than another chain restaurant. And it’d be great if we could get to those places without needing to get in our car, but just walk up the road.

Here’s the reality. Developers, banks, and builders of today do not build things that typically make great places for our communities. They do not build buildings where a mom & pop store can afford the rent. They do not design places conducive to gathering people together. They certainly are not focused on iconic architecture or passive public spaces. They don’t care what type of vehicular traffic their project makes on the adjacent infrastructure. They are focused on building projects that sell quickly, maximize the monthly building rent, and can be sold and traded as an investment vehicle.

They care about the financial benefits of real estate they own. They do not truly care about how their building or project can be a benefit to the community. They aren’t thinking of how they can integrate into the fabric of the existing neighborhood or create enhanced value for everyone else nearby. They certainly aren’t thinking about how a small local business can open up shop and survive the first few challenging years of owning a new business. They’d prefer a chain or corporate tenant that has the financial backing for a 10+ year lease.

And on paper, all of that makes sense. If you’re taking the financial risk to build a building as an investment, you’re going to make all of the practical choices you need in order to maximize that investment and give you the best and highest possible rate of return for your money.

But that is in contradiction to what you and I, the people that live in these communities, desire. We want those great neighborhoods. We want those great and iconic places. We want a variety of housing types and options for our neighborhoods. We want places within walking distance of our homes. So why don’t we just build them ourselves? We care more about our communities than any major chain or national developer ever will. We know what our cities need more than anyone else does. We know the types of dessert shops, restaurants, diners, music venues, boutiques, homes, and office places that could thrive in our town because we know the people in our town. So maybe we should be the ones that are taking on the building and development in our own neighborhoods and opening the businesses we know will succeed. Maybe in the process we can be the ones that make great places and also see the financial benefits rather than leaving it up to the chain stores and national developers. We should be the ones to build something great.