It's not your imagination. There are more restaurants and fewer retail stores in downtown Ann Arbor than there has been in the recent past. But don't freak out. It's going to be fine. Really, it's going to be fine.
The freak out, we should grant, is understandable. The recent closings of Selo/Shevel Gallery and Seyfried Jewelers marked the emotional and abrupt end of an era that downtown hasn't felt for a while, perhaps since Jacobson's abandoned E. Liberty for the mall. These losses, paired with the openings of Isalita, Lena, Vellum, Aventura, the new Knights, Slurping Turtle, and the forthcoming Piata and Ruth's Chris Steak House (among others), were enough to get many wondering if downtown Ann Arbor is undergoing an irrevocable identity change.
"Downtown is always changing," says Ann Arbor
Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Susan Pollay. "Whatever the concern is today, there has been a change underway for years, and the evolution never stops. And not always in the direction we expect it to."
How it's changing and why, as it turns out, aren't necessarily what many townies may expect either.
It's Not that Bad
Mlive's Paula Gardner was asking "
Has Ann Arbor reached its restaurant limit?" in February, before Ruth's Chris, the new Blimpy Burger location or Hunter House Hamburgers had even been announced. Clearly the answer was "no," though only time will tell if all of the restaurants slated to open stay that way.
But perhaps the real question should have been: Has Ann Arbor lost too many retailers?
"Many people view the identity of their downtown by its by retailers. Retail has a different effect on us and our thinking of what downtown is like," says Pollay. "We're feeling such sadness about Selo/Shevel Gallery, because she did such a brilliant job for such a long time, but there are all these other businesses that haven't gone anywhere."
From Legion on N. Main to Catching Fireflies in Kerrytown to a rush of new
Fourth Ave. retailers, the imbalance of new restaurants to retail may not be quite as dramatic as it's being perceived.
"It's a little more lopsided toward restaurant than retail, but I feel we have a very strong mix of retail down here," says Maura Thomson, Executive Director of the
Ann Arbor Main Street Area Association. "That's just not what's getting
the press right now."
According to the 2012/2013
State of Downtown Ann Arbor Report, the district was very recently 11.6 percent restaurants and 13.2 percent retail and wholesale. While that balance may have shifted a bit over the last year, the gap certainly isn't a dramatic one. What is worth noting, says Pollay, is the growth in another wedge of that pie.
"The big change to me is there are an incredible number of new service businesses," she says. "Look at the number of hair salons, and new yoga or workout facilities. It's an emerging trend."
Market Forces
Those trends, in the words of Michael Corleone, or Tom Hanks in
You've Got Mail, depending on your age, are "not personal, it's business."
And it's business based on the personal choices of Ann Arbor residents.
According to a recent market
study by 4ward Planning, Ann Arbor spends 160 percent the national average on dining out and entertainment. If there's an imbalance of restaurants to other businesses downtown, we've eaten ourselves into it.
"The great restaurants we have feed demand for more," says Pollay. "We've become foodies."
Ann Arborites have also become more urban dwellers. With 5,000 residents, the downtown district is home to twice the population it had a decade ago, a trend driven by both millennials and baby boomers. And once they live in or near downtown, they want places nearby to eat, get their hair done, work out... but not necessarily to shop.
"There is no denying that the face of retail has really changed," Thomson says. "You can purchase whatever you want without leaving your home. The challenge for these retailers is to create an experience that no one else can. But we've sustained those independent retailers more than a lot of communities have."
The Right Mix
So what's the right mix? The magical balance of restaurant, retail and service businesses that will make for a perfect downtown?
"I don’t believe there is an ideal business mix," Pollay says. "No downtown, no community for that matter, has the ideal."
Thomson doesn't believe in a magic number either, preferring to always be watching for a balance of businesses that draw people downtown for a variety of reasons. And, as that ever shifting balance is market driven, if locals feel the scales tip too much, they have the power to tip them back.
"We need to get as much community support for our businesses as possible," Thomson says. "I think we need more foot traffic, and we need to get more consistency from our retailers in terms of staying open late."
The Future Mix
As downtown becomes more densely populated and the demand to meet residents' needs increases, Pollay expects to see the mix of businesses downtown to become even more healthy and robust, including an urban grocery store, multipurpose business, better transit, and even new space for larger employers.
"Because of the demand for businesses to relocate downtown, we may be a few years away from the next office building being built downtown," says Pollay. "There is a lot of renewed interest."
Pollay also anticipates another long-neglected sliver of the downtown business mix pie will be growing even more: hospitality. The proposed hotel on Huron and Ashely, she believes, will be just the beginning.
"I'd like to hope that in the next five years we'll see another hotel," she says.
As visitors join residents in shopping and dining downtown, it will only increase the cycle of more density feeding a more balanced business mix. Could all of that demand force some of Ann Arbor's independent retailers out? Not while some of downtown's independent-minded property owners are on the job.
"It's not as simple as the marketplace," Pollay says. "We have property owners who work hard to curate really outstanding entrepreneurs, not just going with who might pay the bills more lavishly."
The business mix in downtown may indeed be changing, but that doesn't change the unique spirit that makes Ann Arbor what it is. Like the transition of the building on Liberty and State from Jacobson's to Borders to a mix of restaurants and tech with local ties, each new era of businesses downtown have the potential to be the community's next longtime favorite, one that will be hard to see go decades down the road when the next comes along.
Natalie Burg is a freelance writer, development news editor for Concentrate and IMG project editor.
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All photos by Doug Coombe