design:retail - July 2014 - (Page 40)
shopping with paco
040
A Great Place
to Live...?
PACO UNDERHILL
CEO & FOUNDER
ENVIROSELL
p.underhill@envirosell.com
O
U R E N V I RO S E L L
he ad q u a r te r s i s
spread across three
floors in a gaudy,
late-19th-century
Flatiron building in New York.
We have an old-fashioned manual
elevator, and my corner office has
decadent wood paneling and a
working fireplace. The windows
rattle in the wind and, for reasons
I couldn't begin to comprehend,
some of the toilets flush with hot
water. The building across the
street was the first home of Lord
& Taylor and, today, the retail
space on the first floor is the new
concept store for Brooks Brothers.
I can stand in my window and see
half a dozen stores I've worked on.
I love being in the middle of the action. Walking to
work, walking home, at lunchtime, out for a coffee;
it is constant, unrelenting retail. Having an office in
the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul might be a tad more
exciting, but I'll settle for the cleaner air and the
people-watching here, which is much better.
Until the birth of mail-order and its Internet
extension, commerce has not been able to escape
physical density. Even as our housing habits changed
and we moved from cities and villages to the suburbs, physical shopping has still been about the reconstruction of the urban experience. Strip malls
were villages; shopping malls were city main streets.
If we make the assumption that physical retail is
here to stay, looking at the evolution of urbanization
is key to being able to project our retail future.
Recently, I drove through the center of New Haven,
Conn., home to Yale University and all of the ancillary business driven by the presence of a world-class
educational and research institution. New Haven has
a lovely New England downtown with the campus,
JULY 2014 DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM
civic buildings, churches and retail surrounding a
town green. There is a charming mix of studentfocused retail, coffee shops, inexpensive restaurants,
galleries and theaters. In that little part of New Haven, people eat, shop and sleep; the street is a happy
place, animated by bodies. While its 19th-century
historic parts are charming, the rest of the city is
deeply troubled.
Four blocks over is a 21st-century wasteland of
new construction, hospitals, office buildings and
parking garages. No retail. The streetfronts are
blank walls and office windows. No retail. The
premise is that someone drives into urban density,
parks their car, goes to work, eats in the internal
cafeteria and then drives home.
What's really missing is housing. When we do
mixed-use development, we provide for modern living; and the street level is about goods and
services. Retail often is the best indicator of the
strength of a community. Healthy stores mean
healthy people. It is ironic that New Haven hosts
one of the great schools of architecture, and yet its array of new
urban development looks good in
conceptual drawings and cybercreated fly-bys, but at street-level,
it looks barren, lonely and dirty.
Our work with Millennials
suggests that we have a generation
that likes cities and the convenience of hassle-free living, which
often means car-free living. They
don't care for big-box stores and
like the idea of living small. Many
live in non-traditional units or,
better-stated, have roommates.
The idea of walking to work
appeals to them. They like the
proximity of other people. Working from a coffee shop is attractive, because they get to see other
people, while at the same time have a respectful
public form of privacy. Yes, they will go online, especially for commodity products, but they also love the
familiarity of local shopping. They like small cities
and are attracted to the idea of the university town's
activities and culture.
Urbanism and urban retail are part of a national
solution to improve the quality of life we have in
North America. How many of our major store
chains are wrestling with getting to a smaller format? Target, Walmart, Walgreens and Office Depot,
just to name a few. We need more.
We need a new generation of plug-in retail pieces that fit into modernist urban planning.
New Haven could be a great place to live. It just
needs to pay attention.
PACO UNDERHILL IS THE FOUNDER OF ENVIROSELL AND AUTHOR OF
THE BOOKS "WHY WE BUY" AND "WHAT WOMEN WANT." HE SHARES
HIS RETAIL AND CONSUMER INSIGHTS WITH DESIGN:RETAIL IN THIS
BI-ISSUE COLUMN.
Photo by WOODRUFF/BROWN ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHY
http://www.DESIGNRETAILONLINE.COM
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of design:retail - July 2014
design:retail - July 2014
Contents
Editor’s Note
Show Talk
On Trend
We Love This!
Designer Picks
Innovation
Postcard
Inspirations
Have You Heard?
Mingle
Shopper Insights
Shopping With Paco
Walmart
Macy's
Student Window Challenge New York
Fixture Leaders
Products
Backstory
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