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City partnering with retail coach

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Gazette News Report

XENIA — The City of Xenia is teaming up with The Retail Coach to try and bring more options to the city.

In October city council authorized the agreement and the expenditure of no more than $48,500 to seek help in increasing the city’s retail offerings. The Retail Coach was one of four companies to reply to a request for proposal and turned in what was deemed the best offer and opportunity.

“In working with The Retail Coach, the City of Xenia would like to expand the variety of retail options available in the City, filling gaps, reducing leakage and strengthening existing, local retailers,” said Steve Brodsky, Development Director for the City of Xenia. “We chose to work with The Retail Coach because the City wanted to help direct the type of retail coming to the city, helping to ensure it meets demands and fills a need. The Retail Coach also provides a strong local component, assisting our existing, local retail establishments to respond to today’s competitive environment so they too can thrive.”

Xenia is home to two industrial parks and is rich with land and infrastructure available for development in a number of business disciplines, according to a release from The Retail Coach.

“The Retail Coach’s team is excited to have the opportunity to work closely with Xenia,” said Kelly Cofer, CEO of The Retail Coach. “Our goal will be to target and recruit appropriate retailers and developers to the area. The first step in this process is to determine the town’s retail trade area, and using that information, the team will create retail profile reports and marketing tools to prepare the team and the city to best represent Xenia nationally to retailers, restaurants, and developers.”

The city has worked with retail recruiters before and did not see the best results. However City Manager Brent Merriman told council in October that the potential upside of success of this program outweighs the costs and risks and by applying a focused, strategic effort on retail recruitment, the city can build on the current momentum and advance the retail segment of Xenia’s economy.

Gazette news report compiled by Scott Halasz.