First, I appreciate all that Signarama, and especially the owner, Pete Naber, has done in our community and I wish them nothing but the absolute best in their new location in Upper Gwynedd. Pete has been an invested and involved business owner who worked with and alongside our Economic Development Committee (EDC) on how to improve business development in the community, while also keeping a keen eye on improving Lansdale in totality. His presence on both EDC and on Main Street will be missed.
Rite Aid, Signarama, Wells Fargo, and National Auto. Four of the most prominent locations in our community are open to re-development and improvement. As I noted in a recent musing, the availability of these locations means our community can substantially improve our downtown in ways that it has not seen in decades. While that may seem like a glass-half-full approach, it still rings true.
The opportunity to completely re-imagine our downtown experience lay before us and we, as a community, need to step up and take ownership of this moment.
I have said before and I will say it again: from a business standpoint, Lansdale, under any audience evaluation review, has one of the best markets for business in the area. We are a sizable and diverse population — nearly 19,000-plus residents — in a dense and walkable community on a commuter train line filled with residents whose average household income is over $77,000 (nearly 14% higher than the PA median). The market for success is here.
The hard part of building the market for business to capitalize on is done. Now we, as a community and as a local government, are tasked with furthering the active development of our business conditions and self-determining what commercial ownership in our community should look like.
Preemptively, I will dispel the belief that nothing needs to change. If nothing needs to change, why do we have 10 vacancies in the first quarter-mile of Main Street between Broad and Wood streets? There are few, if any, regulations limiting the types of businesses that could go on these store fronts. The argument of parking challenges will then inevitably be said, though some of these vacancies have existed when the Madison Lot was in existence. Notably, the business fronts closest to the former Madison Lot are now mostly filled, likely due to their direct access to consumers living in the Madison Station apartments.
With that in mind, we must square with the reality that the biggest hurdles to our commercial redevelopment goals lie with the property owners themselves. They are either unwilling to improve/alter/redesign properties to meet the changing and shifting demands of modern business models, are pricing themselves out of contention for leases by expecting rents that are unattainable for most business models, and/or not actively looking for a business to fill their space for their own reasons.
None of the above reasons should sit well with anyone who is hoping to enhance our downtown business environment. We must stop letting the tail wag the dog and start creating clear expectations around what it means to be a commercial landowner/developer in Lansdale. To be clear, as a community we cannot dictate who can own what building or even what they do with it. However, we can incentivize the types of businesses and development that we want while disincentivizing the business conditions we are not interested in. This means doing any, and hopefully all, of the following:
The fact is our community is at a critical nexus point. We can redefine our commercial and business landscape, if we are willing to actively engage in conversation and clearly define what we want our community to be. Leaving our commercial development up to those who own property, but do not live here, is not going to cut it anymore, and a more active and engaged stance is necessary to foster the growth and development we all want to see.
Hopefully, in the coming months we will be able to bring some of these ideas to fruition and continue moving forward together.
(Mayoral Musings is a weekly op-ed column submitted to North Penn Now, courtesy of Lansdale Borough Mayor Garry Herbert. The views expressed are his own and are not representative of North Penn Now or Lansdale Borough.)
See also:
Mayoral Musings: Strengthen the Community by Supporting Fairmount Fire Company
Mayoral Musings: Patience During Road Work
Mayoral Musings: The Closing of Rite Aid at Main and Broad
Mayoral Musings: The Promise of Private/Public Partnerships In EMS Funding
Mayoral Musings: Susquehanna and Courtland to Change to Two-Way Traffic This Month
