In May the Southampton Association brought nationally acclaimed retail planning consultant Robert Gibbs to a series of meetings with the Village Planning Commission, Trustees, store owners and Town planners.
All agreed it was an extremely productive two days with some interesting retail insights and equally important dialogue between policy makers, businesses and residents. You can view the final meeting on the links below.
Some of the preliminary conclusions were:
-Southampton Village has two well proportioned and managed shopping streets (Main and Jobs) close in length to the golden 1,000 ft length that shoppers will walk.
-The Village has recently suffered the loss of a number of retail/cultural “anchors” from these walkable streets: Saks, the Parrish, post office, police station, and library.
-none-the-less Southampton has one of the most vibrant small town shopping districts in the country with above average sales and quality of merchants.
-future retail could locate in other hamlets or on County Road 39 and damage existing Village market share.
-We recommend that the Village and Town study the 10-year demand for retail to help anticipate and guide demand for new retail development. We have an opportunity to preserve and build upon the wonderful and rare retail streets in the Village. The survival of Southampton directly relates to the retail policies of the Town and region.
-please email us at southanptonassociation@gmail.com if you have any comments or suggestions!
