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Conducting Merchant and Shopper Surveys: Best Practices Roundtable

Event on March 4, 2010

Have you conducted a survey in your commercial district recently? Thinking about how to improve your process for next time? If so, please join this hands-on workshop about designing and conducting better merchant and shopper surveys.

This event will feature helpful presentations on designing and conducting surveys in commercial districts, as well as one-on-one break-out sessions with the presenters.

Bring your lunch, past surveys and your questions about designing the best possible survey for your commercial district.

Featuring:

Event Details

Thursday, March 4, 2010 - 12:00pm to 2:00pm
Pratt Center for Community Development, 379 DeKalb Ave, 2nd floor

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State Senate Retail Report Relies on Pratt Center Research

News last updated August 10, 2010


The Pratt Center's research and recommendations on preserving diverse retail in New York's neighborhoods are heavily cited in a new report from State Senators Daniel Squadron and Shirley Huntley, "New York Retail: Serving the Public"

A follow-up to the 2009 Senate Committee on Cities hearing about the obstacles to independent retail in New York CIty and State (read the Pratt Center's testimony here), the report higlights promising policies and strategies that can be put to work to support businesses, increase neighborhood vitality and expand residents' shopping options.

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Coney Island for All

Project last updated April 6, 2009

Residents and Workers Weigh in on Rezoning

A coalition of community, labor and housing organizations concerned with the future of Coney Island has joined in support of Coney Island for All: A Platform for Equitable Development, on which the Pratt Center for Community Development served as a key advisor. As a rezoning plan for Coney Island proceeds through the city's land use process, the platform outlines measures to ensure that new development in the beloved seaside area helps meet the area's deep needs for good jobs, affordable housing, retail services, preservation and expansion of the historic amusement area, and other community benefits.

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Church Avenue Retail Study

Past Project last updated April 6, 2009

The Church Avenue Business Improvement District (BID) has retained the Pratt Center to conduct a retail market study and needs assessment, with the goal of making sure the already successful retail strip -- the shopping hub of Flatbush -- better serves a neighborhood where the poor and middle class live side by side.
 

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Neighborhood Retail

Project last updated April 7, 2009

Policies and Planning in Support of Local Businesses

The Pratt Center is working with community partners on new neighborhood-based and citywide strategies to strengthen neighborhood retail as a strategy for community economic development in a worsening economy. 

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Saving Independent Retail

Issue Brief last updated August 10, 2009

Independent retailers are part of the glue that holds neighborhoods together, but increasingly they are fighting for survival. Retailers are plagued by high rents, competition from chains and the internet, limited access to credit, and other stresses, but their decline is far from inevitable. Drawing from the Pratt Center's work with neighborhood groups seeking to build strong shopping districts and from creative strategies pursued by other cities, the Pratt Center Issue Brief "Saving Independent Retail" details measures the Mayor’s Office can and must take to keep independent stores thriving.

PrattCenter_SavingIndependentRetail.pdf

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New Markets Tax Credit: Issues and Opportunities

Report last updated December 9, 2004

The New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) is the largest new federal subsidy for economic development in depressed areas created in the past thirty years. This report explores how NMTC works and provides some insight into the program, early in its implementation. It includes case studies of ten NMTC deals from around the country, highlighting projects where federal subsidies are making a real difference in low-income areas.

PrattCenter_nmtc-report.pdf

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Fulton Mall: New Strategies for Preservation and Planning

Report last updated January 1, 2008

A report on the future of Brooklyn's central shopping district

Amid the city's broad redevelopment plan for downtown Brooklyn, Fulton Mall: New Strategies for Preservation and Planning offers ideas for securing the future of Fulton Mall as a vital public place in the wake of the area's 2004 rezoning to promote new office, retail and residential space. The Pratt Center brought historic preservation, urban planning, ethnography, community cultural development, and economic development strategies together, in order to identify economic opportunities, preserve the district's most important historical resources, and provide unique and useful retail for surrounding communities.

PrattCenter-FultonMall_FullReport_3-15-06.pdf

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Coney Island Rezoning

Testimony last updated March 30, 2009

Testimony to Brooklyn Borough President on Coney Island Rezoning
March 30, 2009

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"Street Value" Profiles Fulton Mall Work

News last updated July 7, 2010

Street Value, a new book by Rosten Woo and Meredith TenHoor with Damon Rich (Princeton Architectural Press), delves into the history, streetscape, culture and politics of Brooklyn's Fulton Street Mall. It includes an interview with the Pratt Center's Vicki Weiner and Randall Mason of Minerva Partners, who collaborated on a Pratt Center report recommending strategies for the Fulton Street Mall's preservation. Weiner and Mason sought to preserve not only the architectural legacy of Brooklyn's premier shopping street but also its role as a home to local retailers serving a large and diverse base of longtime customers.

As Weiner told Woo: "Our big 'ah-ha' moment in the analysis of the data happened when we read through and analyzed the shopper surveys and found that a lot of the perceptions of the mall that we'd heard before were just not true - i.e., it's not successful, it's all discount stores."

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