(Seguin) — There’s encouraging news in Seguin when it comes to retail growth in this area. More national retailers, as well as mom and pop shops and restaurants are opening up in Seguin.
Aaron Farmer, president of The Retail Coach, spoke about the city’s retail climate during Tuesday’s meeting of the Seguin City Council. The firm describes itself as the most successful retail recruitment firm and it works with communities all across the United States. Farmer says they’ve been working with the city of Seguin for years, and he’s seen a lot of growth over that time.
“The Retail Coach started working with Seguin (years ago), and have done things off and on for years. But in 2008, I had just started at The Retail Coach and this was actually one of my first projects, so as I drove into town, I was thinking about all the changes that are happening. People moving in. Growth is happening. Retail growth is happening. There are a lot of different things happening. It’s exciting to see what Is happening here, and it’s positive growth. Your city and Economic Development Corporation are going through the strategic plan (process) right now. You’re going through the comprehensive plan and the downtown master plan, and it’s exciting to see all of those things come together, because they all do work together,” said Farmer.
Farmer says part of their work involves collecting data on Seguin and its people. This is the kind of information that retailers use to evaluate a community. That data was originally collected using a license plate reader, which helped them determine where people lived. He says the now use cellphone information, which helps them better pinpoint where people are shopping and where they live. He says they recently looked at Seguin’s HEB store, and what the data showed is that more people are choosing to shop here in Seguin.
“HEB is a great one to use, because it has such a large draw. Another one is Wal-Mart. We’ve run analysis on them, and even downtown, because people travel good distances for those retailers and then for downtown. But what I wanted to point out is just in the last 12 months, we’ve had about 3 million visits to your HEB. A visit is somebody like me, or somebody like you walking into HEB. You have to be there for five minutes for us to consider that you are a shopper or a visitor. Now why that’s important is, when we go talk to these other retailers and restaurants…they want to see those metrics. They want to see those numbers. You know how many people are shopping at Wal-Mart. How many people are coming downtown? Those metrics help them get the market approved. So if I’m a site selector and I’m thinking that Seguin seems like a pretty good market, I’ve still got to go back to the company and convince the board of directors that this is a store we need to open. If we have metrics like this, it’s incredibly helpful data to have,” said Farmer.
They are not looking at your personal cellphone data, but they are looking at where you live and what areas you like to visit when shopping in Seguin.
“We’re not using your home location based off your bill on your cell phone, or you know, where you work or anything like that. It’s where you spend your evenings between 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Think about this, where does your cell phone sit at night? You know, is it on the night stand? That’s what we’re considering your home location. So that’s how we know that the cell phone data is accurate. It’s much more accurate than what we used to do with the license plate data,” said Farmer.
What the data shows is that Seguin’s retail trade area is much larger than the population inside the Seguin city limits. He says customers come from all over this area to shop in Seguin. He says it really represents a large area that extends into some neighboring counties.
“(It includes an area) well to the south passed Stockdale, east to Gonzales, and kind of halfway to New Braunfels, and then west – (it’s out to) maybe the eastern San Antonio area. (That’s) kind of where you’re pulling customers from. This is great data to have and take to a retailer. (We also) look at…area visits. So, I took that HEB data and I looked at just in within that area to see how many consumers were shopping around there. You’ve got a lot of retail and restaurants in that area. So just within that area, there are 19 million visits that happened in the last 12 months. So, we can go to a retailer or we go to a restaurant and say — ‘look, 20 million visits are taking place in this area.’ I think this is why we’re seeing so much interest. You look at the Crossroads Shopping Center, that’s going through that redevelopment process, there’s a lot of consumers that are coming there and shopping there. These numbers look great compared to what they looked like in 2008. They were strong back then, but they are even stronger now,” said Farmer.
Farmer says the growth that’s happening here in this area is helping to put Seguin in a better position to attract new retail shops and restaurants to the city. He says the numbers show that the support and demand for service is here, and he says those are the kinds of things that retailers are looking for when selecting a new site.
“Forget about the city limits and the city limits population. When we’re talking to retailers and restaurants, we’re focused on this retail trade area. This is where you’re pulling people from. It’s a large geographic area.
Like I said it, it goes further south than Stockdale, then east kind of northeast — there’s Gonzales. It’s a very strong trade area. This is what the retailers and what the developers want to see — where are we pulling customers from. So, what I wanted to point out is within this area, the population has grown tremendously. When I started working with Seguin, that trade area population was less than 100,000. There were less than 100,000 people who frequented Seguin for shopping. We are now well north of 115,000 people, who make this their main shopping area. This is where their core shopping area is,” said Farmer.
The latest data on Seguin not only shows more people shopping here, but the people here apparently also have more money to spend at these stores. Farmer says household income in Seguin is rising, which is another good sign for the retail sector.
“Average household incomes are north of $92,000. When we started this in 2008, incomes were in the 60 thousands. You’ve seen that income, in that amount of time, increase by $30,000. We will be well over $100,000 average household income very soon here, and that’s important. Retailers look at all of this. They don’t just look at the city limits population. They don’t just look at the population of the trade area. They’re looking at what are the incomes. Higher incomes show that there is higher disposable income. They show people being willing to spend more on retail and restaurants,” said Farmer.
Farmer says Seguin is also getting younger and that’s another encouraging sign for retailers. It’s another demographic shift detected in the latest data on the community.
“Your median age is down below 40. When we did this years ago…that average age was north of 45. We’re seeing a younger population moving into the community within the trade area. These are maybe kids, or maybe students that graduated from here, that are coming back to live here. It’s one of the things that we’ve noticed. So, that’s a positive,” said Farmer.
Seguin’s efforts to attract new retail opportunities is already beginning to pay off. Farmer says new national brands are moving into town. Many of them have been watching the community for a long time and now felt the time was right to open up in Seguin.
“Recently opened was Marshalls, just a couple of weeks ago. I think it’s doing incredibly well in just that short time. Boot Barn opened not too far before that. We’ve got coming soon, or locating right now is Discount Tire. We’ve got Harbor Freight Tools that’s going to be coming soon as well. H-Tea-O is coming. H-Tea-O is a group that we’ve worked with for several years now, and it’s finally coming. I’m excited about Ross as well. We’ve talked to Ross and Marshalls…for about five years about this market. They’re finally pulling the trigger, and they’re coming to the market. I think there’s going to be a lot of excited people seeing that that’s going to save a trip to San Antonio or to somewhere else,” said Farmer.
Farmer says Seguin is not only on the radar of retailers, but developers are also looking at Seguin as a place to build new spaces for shops and restaurants.
“We’ve had strong developer interest. We’re working currently along with the EDC, on two developers. Developers would come in and put a new shopping center in, or they would come in put a new development in. We’ve got two developers that are that are working on projects. I’ve seen site plans for what those are going to look like, or potentially could look like. We’re really excited about that,” said Farmer.
The city is actively working on retail leads, and Farmer says there are some promising discussions being had. He says there’s a wide variety of retailers considering Seguin right now.
“We’ve got five fast casual restaurants that we’re working with. Fast casual — to give you an example of that — would be somebody like a Panera Bread or a Chipotle. It’s not fast food, but it’s also not a casual sit down (restaurant). It’s somewhere in between. So, we are working with five of those prospects right now. We’re working with four casual sit down restaurants. That’s where you would have a waiter, similar to something like a Chili’s. Five fast food restaurants are looking to come to the market as well, or we’re talking to them. We actually have a national jewelry store that’s looking at this market, that is going to do incredibly well here and we are working on sites right now. Also, a craft hobby store that I think would make a lot of people excited. We’re working with other family clothing stores. So, you’ve had Marshalls come in and you have Ross coming, but we are working with another clothing store coming to the market. We are working with two ranch supply stores. We’re also working with a large home center that’s looking to come here as well. I think it makes sense with all the housing growth that’s coming in here. We’ve got a shoe store or two that are interested. We’re working with another hotel and then a wine, beer, and liquor store chain that’s looking at the market. So, we’re excited about that,” said Farmer
Even with the growth that’s occurring here locally, Farmer says they know that they have to continue to actively pursue these companies. They have to give them the supporting data and in some cases work to give them examples of sites that are available in Seguin. He says the city is doing all it can to try to lure more of these companies to town.
“Seguin has to work a little bit harder to get noticed than maybe some of these, you know, suburban areas near San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, and Houston. That happens a lot with smaller to medium-sized communities. We got to work just a little bit harder. So, we’ve almost got to do the site selection work for the retailers, the restaurants, the developers. That’s really our role with the EDC — is to stay in front of them, using the relationships we have. So, whether it’s Chick-fil-A or some of these other prospects, we are going to ping them every two weeks and say ‘Hey, have you looked at that site we sent you? Have you looked at the new numbers we sent over?’ A lot of it is about timing, but I think that it’s going to be somewhat of a domino effect as we start getting these other retailers and restaurants. Marshalls is open, Ross is opening, and I think that’s going to get a lot of these other retailers noticing and hopefully, it will become a domino effect,” said Farmer.
It seems that anytime there’s a conversation about retail development in Seguin, there’s inevitably a question raised about Chick-fil-A. That was again the case during Tuesday’s council meeting, where Farmer was asked about Chick-fil-A coming to Seguin. Farmer says the company is well aware of Seguin, and he thinks eventually they will end up here.
“Just based on the size of the community and the growth you’ve seen, Chick-fil-A is a natural fit. My thinking is they’ll be here sooner than later, but it goes through their process. We’ve got to get in front of the site selector or the broker. So, I’m glad you asked that question. I think we’ll see them here sooner than later,” said Farmer.
Farmer says retailers like to cluster, especially in those areas where population growth is occurring. He says that’s one of the reasons why he expects to see more retail growth in those existing retail areas, but also in areas on the north and west sides of town.
