Downtown Population increased 25% since 2000 (Pittsburgh: to live, delivery, rating)

[AaronPGH]

Originally Posted by eschaton

How hard would it be to just get a NYC-style bodega (or at least a higher-end one) Downtown? I mean, nothing fancy, just a boosted-up convenience store, but stocked with actual staples rather than junk food, with maybe a deli counter as well. Since it has worked elsewhere,it seems the obvious choice in terms of format.

Isn't this what Smithfield News has already expanded into? They have a small selection of produce, and a deli counter.

[JoeP]

I don't see Trader Joe's as a downtown market at all. I don't think it makes sense.

[pman]

Originally Posted by JoeP

I don't see Trader Joe's as a downtown market at all. I don't think it makes sense.

the trader joe's in center city philadelphia is far and away the most profitable store in that region. I ran into someone who works there (in the office) and they said the slowest weeks have more revenue than the busiest weeks of the second largest store which is in the suburbs. while certainly downtown is comparable in terms of workday volume (and that store does good volume) it is not in evening/residential volume. Piatt is right that the first store will likely have to do decent lunch business. if you're selling the same things you use in your lunch (bread, prosciutto, mozzarella, milk, cheese, etc) it could alleviate the problem since, at first, evening hours would be a marginal part of the business with the profits made selling coffee and breakfast items, lunches, and perhaps prepared foods to workers on the way home (rotisserie chickens, etc) with the long run goal of building up the grocery business. It would also help if a landlord were forgiving on rent in the beginning...which makes sense if you own a lot of property since this kind of amenity adds value to your holdings, particularly residential. I hope Piatt goes local but who knows. I'd guess a TJ's would be an excellent fit in the pen's new development at some point in the future where it has parking but also fronts an urban area. I could be wrong though, it wouldn't be the first time a landlord has lured a chain with a big rent break.

[greg42]

Some more thoughts:

What Penn Mac is in the Strip is quite a lot different than what it would need to be successful downtown. Doesn't mean they can't do it, just not guaranteed that it's inside their area of expertise. If you just took a subset of what Penn Mac is and plunked it downtown, it's not like it would be useless of course but it wouldn't be the same as some of these broader format stores.

I think for many a bodega is not enough. Also wouldn't really offer anything new for downtown workers. How different was Rosebud from a NYC bodega? Complete with deli counter. Had maybe even less junk food though. And wrong location, yeah.

I don't think some aspects would do well separately. Something that generates critical mass to stay alive will have to draw well enough both from downtown workers and the residents. The residents alone won't quite keep this alive yet, still not enough residents. A greengrocer for example I don't think will draw much from the workers. (Although maybe it could if they did something that really set them apart from what people can get closer to home.) Seems like less risk if you combine some of these functions, but admittedly I could be wrong there.

If you combine beer sales (despite being compartmentalized by the stupid laws, but that's why I say cafe should be attached because that's the part of the law that will allow them to sell beer 6-packs), lunch food that would draw some workers and a remainder of the store format that means residents could do a reasonable amount of grocery shopping there then you've got something that should work right now. Keep in mind some residents are college students at Point Park, etc. All very easy to propose, very hard to do well! Non-food items are handled pretty well by the drug stores so too much focus on that is probably counterproductive.

Piatt/Millcraft has put a mix of chains and local stuff in their buildings, taking some heat on this forum for chains. Just something to think about. I would say with the right execution it doesn't need the name recognition of a chain or even an existing store at all, as long as word gets out that it's good. I do think Trader Joe's would work but I also think it would be a missed opportunity to sell beer with groceries. (I don't believe TJ's would institute an in-store cafe layout just to sell beer in PA, although I suppose you never know.)

[pman]

I don't know the penn mac people personally but my experiences in other cities indicates that your concerns are misplaced from a conceptual point of view. what pennmac does would fit very well downtown and the idea of prepared food is extremely compatible. penn mac does what? offers a variety of meats, cheeses, olives, imported canned goods, pastas, olive oils, produce, etc. there's not much else that is needed and those items fit will with a higher income demographic and perhaps offer workers something they can't get easily at the giant eagle down the street. what I don't know is the people side, do they have the people who are willing and able to deal with an expansion. it's worth noting that the store I linked to above, they had trouble getting a loan from big banks and the expansion was ultimately financed by a local bank, and has paid off handsomely for both. of course, behind the scenes was a family business that also needed to grow to accomodate a bigger family.
piatt's choices of tenants don't lead one to be confident in a quality choice, I would agree that some of the MSQ choices have been subpar and haven't added enough to the square. in the end, I agree, it's about quality.

[goliath]

Burns & Scalo Real Estate Services Inc. has an agreement to buy the eight-story former Graphic Arts building at 422 First Ave., downtown, and is considering a plan to convert it, along with a newly built addition, into 100 micro-apartments.

Pittsburgh's first micro-apartments being planned - Pittsburgh Business Times

I'd guess these would be marketed towards Art Institute and Point Park students. The plans mention an addition, which, looking at the site layout, likely would be on the back side of the building replacing a surface lot on Ft Pitt Blvd.

Also note that this is across the street from another conversion project announced this month.

Condos planned at historic site - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

First Ave has a nice scale. If there are more projects like these plus some infill I could see this area becoming quite nice.

[AaronPGH]

In order for Penn Mac to do well downtown, they'd have to be comfortable diving into the world of prepared foods and a cafe. Possibly a team-up with an already existing strip district restaurant?

I still think a mini Market District or small Whole Foods (they do exist in other cities) are the two best options.

[greg42]

Originally Posted by pman

I don't know the penn mac people personally but my experiences in other cities indicates that your concerns are misplaced from a conceptual point of view. what pennmac does would fit very well downtown and the idea of prepared food is extremely compatible. penn mac does what? offers a variety of meats, cheeses, olives, imported canned goods, pastas, olive oils, produce, etc. there's not much else that is needed and those items fit will with a higher income demographic and perhaps offer workers something they can't get easily at the giant eagle down the street.

I would disagree mainly with the bit in bold. I believe to get enough traffic from residents as more than an occasional stop you'll need more variety than the Italian-centric Penn Mac stock as it is now. Also, although prepared food is extremely compatible as you say, it is not something they do at present (to my knowledge) so that would be something new for them.

Penn Mac would be fairly appealing for the "workers shopping for home" aspect, but they're not going to reasonably be able to do things like duplicate the entire cheese counter and such I wouldn't think. (Although even a subset of the cheese counter would be pretty good I suppose.)

I think the goal would be to have residents realize that it's hardly ever worth their while to even bother going outside downtown to get groceries when you can walk a couple blocks and get nearly everything without having to get the car out and go somewhere. I think it could be done with the size of space they're talking about in the article, and I think it would be sustainable if executed in such a way that it achieves this. I don't think Penn Mac's current product mix would achieve it. Which isn't to say they couldn't expand it in such a way that it would work, because they quite possibly could.

[pman]

I'd have to disagree. They dont need to sell low margin items like toilet paper and doritos which CVS does better. Sure they might want to add staples like milk and eggs but they really don't need to be giant eagle. It seems likely thay most downtown households will be on the ssmaller side and don't need a once a week stock up kind of place but someplace to pick up olive oils, fresh bread, meats, cheese, produce ...mostly the stuff they sell. It wouldn't hurt to add pieogies and things but its not really that great a leap but perhaps that's my experience in other places talking. Its not lot whole paycheck OS one stop shopping.

[greg42]

Originally Posted by pman

I'd have to disagree. They dont need to sell low margin items like toilet paper and doritos which CVS does better. Sure they might want to add staples like milk and eggs but they really don't need to be giant eagle. It seems likely thay most downtown households will be on the ssmaller side and don't need a once a week stock up kind of place but someplace to pick up olive oils, fresh bread, meats, cheese, produce ...mostly the stuff they sell. It wouldn't hurt to add pieogies and things but its not really that great a leap but perhaps that's my experience in other places talking. Its not lot whole paycheck OS one stop shopping.

FWIW I'm not talking about Doritos and toilet paper. I already mentioned above that I think it would be counter-productive to sell non-food items when you have half a dozen or more CVS and Rite Aids downtown. Quite proper to group Doritos in that non-food category as well I think.

I'm talking about more variety of foodstuffs. Mostly more variety of quality fresh food and ingredients but probably a bit more pedestrian packaged stuff too here and there.

Let me try to spell out my reasoning a little better if I wasn't being clear already: if this hypothetical downtown store doesn't have enough of the things residents will need, then residents will see it only as an emergency fallback between trips to wherever or when they don't feel like going. I believe if that is the case the store will not do enough business from residents and will get stuck in a spiral where the ever-diminishing variety of stock only makes it more useless for residents.

Obviously this downtown store can't be everything to all residents. But I think it needs to aspire to be most grocery things to most residents for it to be successful as the true downtown grocery residents are craving. Otherwise it doesn't feel like it will be enough to make the difference people are looking for when they say "there's no grocery downtown". If the majority of residents continue to feel like they need to do weekly or more often grocery trips outside of downtown, then this store is not sustainable for its key purpose which is to benefit downtown residents.

We may still disagree on pieces of this, which is fine. Not trying to convince you necessarily, just trying to be clear how I arrived at my thoughts.