What are case studies?
Case studies share what people and organisations have learned from delivering or developing a project or programme. They can help you to see what has worked on the ground and can give you ideas about how to tackle problems. They can also signpost you to people and organisations you may want to talk to.
Key contact: Gerry Widdicombe
Downtown DC Business Improvement District
Tel: 00 1202 661 7591
E-mail: gerry@downtowndc.org
In a nutshell
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) have become an essential part of town centre management. For the management of an area to be strategic - with performance being monitored as it evolves - identifying trends and comparing aspects of your centre to others is necessary. Furthermore, comprehensive data on your town centre can give investors, consumers and partners confidence of the vision they are buying into.
Town centre performance management can be defined as:
Using comparative and longitudinal data, performance management enables place managers to create, monitor and adapt strategies to align a location's objectives with the needs of its stakeholders.
The issues addressed
This is the first of three case studies, developed in partnership by the Scottish Centre for Regeneration and Association of Town Centre Management. It is designed to help Town Centre Managers (TCMs) deal with three particular issues when it comes to using KPIs:
- Benchmarking your town centre against others
- Ensuring the long term use of KPIs
- Informing your retail planning
Although the context in which each town operates is unique, there will be much in common between the underpinning principles of these three case studies and the issues all TCMs face when developing a programme for KPIs. To demonstrate these common issues and to build knowledge of progressive international approaches to using KPIs, this first case study comes from Washington DC with the other two case studies focusing on Toronto and Fife.
About Downtown DC
Against the backdrop of inner city abandonment, a lack of public investment and a municipality threatened with bankruptcy, the Downtown DC Business Improvement District (the BID) was created to reverse the fortunes of the old Downtown area of Washington DC (between the Capital and the White House).
Today, the BID is thriving with the area's property holders agreeing to a mandatory supplementary property tax of $8 million in 2010, with an extra $2 million being contributed by the federal government. One of its key strengths has been to provide data about the city centre, which allows the BID to lower the risk for potential investors and for local government to devise informed policy, whilst benchmarking DC's performance against regional competitors.
How initial data collection unveiled DC's core strengths
At the time the BID was formed, the city was just coming out of bankruptcy and did not have good information on either the city centre or DC economy. The first order of business was to provide basic information on the city centre's economy and its relationship to the city and regional economies.
By combining in-depth studies of the employment market (provided by an academic) with information on the DC real estate development economy (provided by a national firm), a picture of the relationship between office businesses and the performance of the city was constructed.
Office business would create employment. Those employed in the downtown would (1) use other local services, strengthening local businesses and (2) be more likely to live in DC. Consequently, a growing office market would result in tax revenue growth for the local government, improving the fiscal management of the wider city.
The additional tax revenue allows for increased funding for social initiatives such as public school modernisation, affordable housing, healthcare investments, job training and neighbourhood redevelopment.
Competitive analysis of the city centre and DC office market
Concerned that DC's ability to attract office-based businesses may be marginalised by competitors in the region, Downtown DC undertake research to continually assess its strengths and weaknesses of its office market using comparable data. By benchmarking aspects of DC's offer and performance with that of other town and city centres, members of Downtown DC have been able to offer strong and credible recommendations to local government to retain growth in the market.
By working in partnership with a national commercial real estate firm Downtown DC concluded that it had many strengths which had fuelled growth in the market including proximity to the federal government, excellent public transport links, an attractive public realm and access to a wide labour pool stretching from Richmond to Baltimore.
However, an assessment of competitors showed these advantages were narrowing as areas like Crystal City in Virginia and Silver Spring in Maryland were rapidly improving their transport infrastructure and modernising their public realm.
Furthermore, DC had weaknesses. It was calculated that Class A office space in it's city centre was $20 to $26 per square feet more expensive than in nearby suburbs, a combination of higher rental rates, property tax and operating costs. The expected result is the loss of cost-conscious businesses, especially smaller firms and those from sectors with lower profit margins.
In light of this, Downtown DC has been able to develop its strategy for preserving the office based market and is able to instigate this by working closely with the local government, making recommendations on how and why costs should be reduced for office-based businesses.
Lessons learnt
By using general KPIs, Downtown DC has been able to identify the importance of its office-based businesses to the local economy. By benchmarking, it has garnered a detailed perspective on the strategies which should be employed to ensure these businesses continue to see DC city centre as the primary place to be situated. TCMs, wherever possible, should look to collect data on nearby commercial centres of all kinds which may bring to light competitive issues affecting anything from the private sector investment to consumer footfall. Furthermore, TCMs should benchmark their area against towns with similar characteristics across Scotland and the UK to learn more about how the town is performing on a regional and national level.
Downtown DC managed to achieve this by forming an alliance with a national real estate company who could provide compatible data on DC and competing areas. Consequently, DC has been able devise a strategy for retaining one of its core strengths in the face of strong competition. TCMs can use this example to explore how they can build upon existing strengths to improve the possibility of investment in their town centres.
Further information
For any other enquiries regarding the Downtown DC Case Study, please contact:
Gerry Widdicombe
Director of Economic Development
Downtown DC Business Improvement District
Phone: 00 1 202 661 7597
Email: gerry@downtowndc.org
Scottish Centre for Regeneration
This case study is published by the Scottish Centre for Regeneration, which is part of the Scottish Government. We support our public, private and voluntary sector delivery partners to become more effective at:
- regenerating communities and tackling poverty
- developing more successful town centres and local high streets
- creating and managing mixed and sustainable communities
- making housing more energy efficient
- managing housing more efficiently and effectively
We do this through:
- coordinating learning networks which bring people together to identify the challenges they face and to support them to tackle these through events, networking and capacity building programmes
- identifying and sharing innovation and practice through publishing documents detailing examples of projects and programmes and highlighting lessons learned
- developing partnerships with key players in the housing and regeneration sector to ensure that our activities meet their needs and support their work
Scottish Centre for Regeneration
Scottish Government
Highlander House
58 Waterloo Street
Glasgow
G2 7DA
Tel: 0141 271 3736
Email: contactscr@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Website: www.partnersinregeneration.com
The views expressed in case studies are not necessarily shared by the Scottish Centre for Regeneration or the Scottish Government.
January 2010