LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — The Lakeport City Council on Tuesday evening heard an encouraging report on efforts to recruit new businesses to the city — including the process to find retailers to fill the former Kmart building — and extended the contract with the firm doing the work.
In an unanimous vote, the council approved the second extension to the professional services agreement with The Retail Coach for retail strategies and recruitment.
City Manager Kevin Ingram said the city hired The Retail Coach in 2019, a move brought into full focus with the closing of the city’s Kmart store.
Ingram said the pandemic had slowed down the work but The Retail Coach is still making progress.
Austin Farmer of The Retail Coach gave the council an update on the work that’s been done so far and what’s still underway.
He said one of Lakeport’s biggest challenges is that there are a lot of perceptions of the community from the outside that are not accurate based on not knowing how big the city's daytime population is or the size of the retail market.
The Retail Coach geofenced top business locations in the city and put together a profile of the actual retail trade area and population, and Farmer said they are using that information to recruit retailers, restaurants and developers to come into the market.
Farmer said The Retail Coach has a three-person team dedicated to working on the city’s behalf, an effort that includes going to conferences to meet with retailers and property owners.
Lakeport’s downtown area is a continual focus of the work, but Farmer said most national tenants don’t go downtown anymore. So his team is identifying regional and statewide opportunities that could expand into the city.
Recruitment efforts cover a mix — from national and regional retainers, to mom and pop and independent businesses from across the region, Farmer said.
Farmer said they also are recruiting developers. He said he thinks there is a huge opportunity for development and redevelopment, including on the site of the “Lakeport Hub Project,” a shopping center and hotel development on 15.5 acres at 1842 Todd Road proposed by remont-based New Vista Developers.
The Lakeport Planning Commission approved an architectural and design review, tentative subdivision, use permit, zoning permit and environmental review for the Lakeport Hub in January.
Another location that Farmer said has great potential is the Vista Point shopping center. That gateway development site is more challenging, and he said The Retail Coach is trying to find someone to come in and buy and redevelop it.
Farmer said they are pursuing franchise recruitment along with national and regional retail recruitment.
He said they’ve been actively recruiting about 60 retailers and restaurants. About eight companies are reviewing sites or looking for sites in the market, and there have been four market and site visits to date.
The biggest news of the presentation was that Farmer said they’ve received two letters of intent from retailers for the redevelopment of the Kmart property on South Main Street.
He said the biggest sense of urgency was for Kmart, which had potential to not meet highest and best use. “We’re pretty satisfied with it,” said Farmer, explaining it’s going in a very positive direction for the Kmart building.
During the discussion, Farmer explained that one of the retailers that is pursuing the Kmart space was in the area looking at a competing community and The Retail Coach was able to facilitate that retailer into making a visit to Lakeport. The result was that the retailer committed to the Kmart space.
That retailer told them a year ago, “Lakeport isn't a market we would consider,” Farmer said.
Farmer said The Retail Coach is now working to recruit more than 10 retail and mixed use developers, three of which are considering development and redevelopment opportunities in the market.
He said they are setting up calls with property owners and developers potentially interested in purchasing sites, and continuing to build a pipeline of successful, capable developers that could have interest in the market.
Lakeport lacks available development and redevelopment sites or second generation retail space, and Farmer said they are trying to fill a void. He said the biggest challenge moving forward is the time it has taken to get planned developments off the ground and getting the highest and best use of existing assets.
Farmer said most of the retailers they are talking to are Fortune 500 companies. The Retail Coach team came away from a Las Vegas retail conference more optimistic than they expected. While they expected a lot of retailers would be shrinking their plans, many instead are expanding.
“That gives us a little bit of optimism” in terms of the retail model, he said.
Community Development Director Jenni Byers, who has been working in economic development for more than a decade, said she went to a conference with The Retail Coach. She said she couldn’t have gotten in front of some of the groups she was able to speak to without Farmer.
“We tried to do some of this on our own for a few years,” said Ingram.
“We were not getting to the table,” he added.
Ingram said Farmer has taught the city the patience aspect of the work in continuing to pursue retailers, which Farmer had noted during the discussion requires them to constantly stay in front of retailers and developers in order to keep interest from waning.
The council voted unanimously to update and extend the contract.
In other business, the council gave direction to staff to create a recruitment and retention incentive plan to recruit and retain Lakeport Police officers, as the city has been challenged with finding officers, a nationwide issue, said Police Chief Brad Rasmussen.
Also on Tuesday, the council welcomed new Public Works volunteer Ken Kelsen, who is working on projects including street sweeping.
He moved to Lake County four years ago full-time after retiring from the fire service. He walked into the city to point out some problems, was offered the chance to help and came on board.
“That wasn’t exactly what I was expecting,” Kelsen said.
Public Works Superintendent Ron Ladd said it’s been a pleasure having Kelsen as a volunteer, noting his great attitude that spreads to the rest of the crew.
The council also adopted the 2022 California Building Codes through an amendment to the Lakeport Municipal Code and received an update from Chief Building Official Bethany Moss on the city’s code enforcement operations.
At the end of the meeting, the council held a closed session performance of evaluation of Ingram that ran under 15 minutes before council members emerged and adjourned the meeting.
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