The mpls downtown council held its latest a morning with steve cramer membership event on March 22 with the topic focused on “what’s next for downtown retail?” The event, hosted by Hennepin Theatre Trust and sponsored by CBRE, took place at New Century Theatre inside City Center and featured three members of The 2025 Plan development committee’s new retail task force.
Approximately 55 members registered for the event, and the panel featuring the retail task force co-chairs Jim Durda of Zeller Realty Group and David Frank of the City of Minneapolis’ Community Planning & Economic Development team as well as CBRE’s Matt Friday.
The conversation focused on the opportunities ahead and how the changing retail landscape in downtown also offers a chance to redefine what shopping in our downtown community can and will be. That includes a three phase plan of short term, medium term and long term strategies. The end result is to keep the downtown retail scene thriving, to lure tenants and to ensure that the infrastructure for successful retail downtown is in place. It also is focusing on what is the downtown customer base with the understanding that there are currently 40,000 downtown residents and more than 160,000 workers.
The group also discussed better visibility between the street and skyway, and strategies on working together to secure new tenants.
For more information on membership events, or to learn more about becoming a mpls downtown council member, email membership@mplsdowntown.com or call 612-338-3807.
