Editorial: Local government needs to keep up with changes in retail

The Island Now

Jildor Shoes, one of the longest running businesses in Great Neck Plaza, closed its location there last week after nearly 60 years in business.

The company will continue to operate at four other locations — in Greenvale, Woodbury, Cedarhurst and Southampton.

So Jildor Shoes customers need not worry.

But for those concerned about the health of the Plaza shopping district and shopping districts across Great Neck peninsula it’s a different matter.

The closing of Jildor Shoes’ Great Neck location is part of a long and ongoing trend of store closings that left the once vibrant shopping district pockmarked with empty storefronts.

Two years ago, Blank Slate Media surveyed the villages of Great Neck Plaza, Great Neck Estates and Great Neck and found that 53 of the 410 storefronts were not occupied.

Jean Celender, Great Neck Plaza’s full-time mayor, said at the time that the total of 26 empty storefronts in her village was actually a better number than the year before.

She pointed to a number of businesses ready to open.

Which they did only, in many cases, to close. Jildor was among five in the past two months to shutter their doors in Great Neck.

Celender and many other elected officials have in the past pointed to the internet and the decline of brick-and-mortar stores across the country in explaining the decline of their main streets.

But this is no longer true.

Brick-and-mortar retail stores have shown strong gains in 2018, although it is true the gains have not been across the board.

“Stores that have learned how to match the ease and instant gratification of e-commerce shopping are flourishing, while those that have failed to evolve are in bankruptcy or on the brink,” The New York Times reported in September.

“The retailers that get it recognize that Amazon has forever changed consumer behavior,” added Barbara Kahn, a marketing professor and former director of the retailing center at the Wharton School, in the Times story. “I shouldn’t have to work to shop.”

This is a lesson that retailers and other local business are well advised to heed whether they are well established or just getting started.

But the need to learn these lessons is not limited to business owners.

Local governments across the North Shore must recognize what today’s consumers expect if they want to avoid a town plagued by empty storefronts.

A good place to start is parking.

Shopping malls offer ample, free parking. Amazon and other online sites don’t even require you to get out of your pajamas to shop.

But parking in towns and villages is often hard to come by and comes with a cost. And these costs can mount quickly with overeager code enforcement officers focused on producing revenues by aggressively issuing tickets.

At a minimum, villages should allow customers to use an app to pay the cost of parking without making unnecessary trips to feed the meter.

And give them a grace period if they are a few minutes late. And suspend parking restrictions during the holidays.

Customers should also be treated courteously by code enforcement agents. It’s hard to imagine anyone working at Nordstrom or Bloomingdale’s speaking to people as some code enforcement people speak to people with an expired meter.

It should also go without saying that restaurants and other businesses be allowed to offer valet parking. This is true in every village on the North Shore with one exception. Care to guess which?

Yes, Great Neck Plaza. Plaza officials say they tried valet parking and found it to be a safety hazard. The Plaza has solved that safety hazard with empty storefronts.

Memo to Great Neck Plaza voters: If your elected officials cannot figure out how to safely allow restaurants to offer valet parking perhaps it’s time to get rid of the officials rather than the valet parking.

The same goes for officials unable to deal with delivery problems and, heaven forbid, traffic problems caused by a popular store or restaurant.

Village officials should work with the local business community and chambers of commerce to determine how to make business districts more attractive to shoppers.

The officials can also encourage new businesses by streamlining the permit approval process to avoid needless delays that run up the cost to businesses seeking to open.

The Town of North Hempstead, the county or both could also assist villages by hiring experts to assist in developing business development plans.

Few village governments can afford consultants who can offer a plan for parking, zoning and other areas needed to ensure a vibrant business community.

Town leadership is also needed in developing a coherent plan for places such as Great Neck where several village governments share ownership of a single business district — often, each with its own plan.

Great Neck’s nine villages may offer the kind of close contact to government residents want. But it is not a good way to develop a business development strategy.

From there, it will be up to the village officials and voters to ensure they follow that advice.

 

 

Share this Article