Modesto weighs spending $60,000 for retail and market study

The city could spend as much as $60,000 for a consulting firm to study the retail opportunities in downtown, along Sisk Road and in east Modesto.

The City Council’s Healthy Economy Committee – which consists of council members Bill Zoslocki, Doug Ridenour and Jenny Kenoyer – is expected to hear staff’s proposal Wednesday to hire Buxton, based in Fort Worth, Texas, to conduct a retail and market study. A Buxton official is expected to speak at the meeting.

No final decisions will be made at the meeting. The City Council at a later meeting would make the decision to hire Buxton. The committee meeting gives city officials a chance to vet their proposal in public.

A city report states Buxton has worked with more than 700 cities, counties, chambers of commerce and other organizations, including Livermore and the Downtown Sacramento Partnership, and more than 2,000 retail clients, including Trader Joe’s, Target, Lowe’s and the P.F. Chang’s restaurant chain.

Community and Economic Development Director Cindy Birdsill said in an email that while downtown has a relatively strong restaurant component, there is a need to look at more retail to bring more people downtown. She added the city wants to know whether Sisk Road – home to big-box retailers fronting Highway 99 – could support more retail and there is a perception that there is a need for more shopping in east Modesto.

She said more shopping choices will add to residents’ quality of life and bring in more sales tax revenue to the city’s general fund budget, which primarily pays for public safety. The $60,000 would come from the general fund.

She said one of Buxton’s strengths is that it has an arrangement with Visa that allows the company to learn more about a community’s shopping habits, such as what households are purchasing and where they are making those purchases.

“It would be helpful for us to understand, rather than just median income, what is the discretionary income of our residents and retail customers,” Birdsill said in her email. “This will allow us to approach retailers who are not in our market with better data to match the opportunity here.”

The committee meeting is at 2 p.m. in Room 2005 on the second floor of Tenth Street Place, 1010 10th St. It is open to the public.

This story was originally published February 9, 2016 at 1:56 PM with the headline "Modesto weighs spending $60,000 for retail and market study."