As reported on Global News and in the business section of the Vancouver Sun Main Street has been named by the Cushman & Wakefield real estate firm as one of the fifteen “cool” streets in North America. And please forgive them, but the firm uses a “Hip-O-Metre”. The full copy of the report is available here.
The report describes the emergence of a new brand of consumer-the millennials who are looking for products in the mid-market price range. Cushman & Wakefield notice that millennials are not flocking to malls or the typical commercial streets, but to what they call “cool streets”. These streets are quirky and different, with retailers that actively and independently engage shoppers in unique experiences.
Noted in the Vancouver Sun, “Main Street, with its independent shops and eateries, was assigned the “up and coming” designation on the study’s “Hip-O-Metre,” which measures an area’s development stage, livability, “retail flavour,” demographics (about 30 per cent under the age of 35), percentage of renters (56) and university graduates (77). It also assessed residential and commercial rents, the latter being $20 to $43 per square foot.
The report noted that the Mt. Pleasant area’s shift from “working class to arts district” started 20 years ago and has been “on steroids” for the past five years, especially at Main and Broadway.”
Main Street has always been an interesting and diverse street with many small locally owned businesses. That retailing has been reinforced wit an increase of small restaurants and coffee bars that have punctuated and provided great places to rest and people watch. The BIA for Mount Pleasant (Business Improvement Area) has been actively promoting the maintenance and development of smaller retail floor spaces to encourage this diversity and variety of retailing. It looks like the BIA, the shop and restaurant owners, and the residents patronizing these businesses are succeeding. Main Street is the new “It” street.
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Reblogged this on Sandy James Planner.
Thanks for drawing our attention to this Sandy!
Worth noting the good work of creative developers who have been creating mixed use projects that accommodate fine-grained local serving retaiil on the ground level retail with residential above. A good example is District Main on 28th and Main with its funky residential rental community.
Now … Vancouver is unique amongst cities for its lack of “Malls”. Instead we have a network of local-serving street retail nodes – about 30 local shopping areas defined largely by the pattern of movement 100 years ago – the street car grid predicated on a) walking and b) cheap, clean, electric mass transit.
What I find interesting is that there are many other local shopping areas that we can improve with new intensity and new amenity while accommodating more families. And just venture a block or two into these neighbourhoods and there are more opportunities for gentle density and infill that will offer many more families great places to live at costs far far lower than single detached homes.