Q&A: Jasmine Almoayed

Jasmine Almoayed
Economic Development Manager
City of Cedar Rapids

By Dave DeWitte
dave@corridorbusiness.com

Cedar Rapids is working with real estate agents and developers, and even hiring consultants to help bring in more retail stores. It’s a relatively new approach to economic development for the city, and Jasmine Almoayed, the city’s economic development manager, took time to explain why retail is so important to the city’s ‘holistic’ approach to economic development, and whether we’re likely to get that Cheesecake Factory we’ve all been dreaming about.

The role of economic development manager with the city of Cedar Rapids is a relatively recent one. How would you describe your overall responsibilities?

The short answer is to develop and direct the economic development strategy for the city. City leadership adopted a vision where economic development is much more holistic than just the traditional approach of recruiting new interstate commerce business to the area and assisting in the expansion of existing industry. While that is a core function of what we do, we also believe in the important role that community development plays in economic development, as companies now are starting and growing more than ever before based on where there is available workforce. People want to live in cities with great quality of place, which has been a driving force behind so many of the city’s policy decisions post-flood.

Cedar Rapids has more retail development going on right now than we can remember. What’s driving it?

I don’t believe there is any single force driving the increase in development, but a multitude of things that have caused the momentum. I think primarily it’s simply market demand. Every commercial agent and developer I speak with say they have new retailers interested in coming to the market, and I myself have visited with several retailers who are very drawn to the traffic in certain areas of the city.

I think it’s also a combination of visionary leadership in the private and public sector and partnerships to help make these types of projects work. We have amazing developers working locally who see possibilities and are willing to take on risks, and a city council that is supportive of helping those who are making these large investments make their visions reality. We also have an impressive group of commercial real estate agents who are out attracting new retailers to the market and filling those spaces. There has been a lot of work happening in tandem and several variables that all needed to line up at the right time.

We reported last year on the city’s contract for retail consulting services with Fort Worth-based Buxton, the  customer analytics company. Can you give us an example of how the data Buxton provides helps with retailer recruitment efforts?

The Buxton data helps tell us who our customer is, where those consumers live and work in Cedar Rapids, and most importantly, the value of those consumers to specific retailers. It helps us understand which specific brands are most likely to locate in Cedar Rapids based on our current consumer profile and the retail market conditions we have that are attractive to those specific retailers. It also can help local agents who are actively recruiting retailers quickly get the information they need to close the deal through the data that matters to them.

Population and household income thresholds seem to be huge factors in siting decisions of retail chains. Are we big enough, population-wise and income-wise, to get attention, or will we need to keep growing?

This all depends on the individual retail chains. Population and income are certainly determining factors for retailers, but each company has its own site selection criteria based on several factors: customer profiles in market, expansion plans for a particular brand in a given region, competitors in the market, other retailers in the market that want to be a co-tenant, and so on.

I think often times people go to much larger metro areas where the population is more diverse, with millions of potential customers, and may want to see similar types of retail in the Cedar Rapids market. The reality of it is, these retailers know exactly where their customers live and how many of those customers they need in order to be successful. Being a smaller market will always be difficult for us. It’s highly unlikely we will see upscale national clothing stores, for example, because we don’t have the same market share available to them that they might have access to in Chicago.

You’ve mentioned the importance of momentum in getting retailers to locate in the Corridor. Can you explain how that works?

Many retailers like to co-locate their stores near a particular store or brand. You often times will see several types of retailers grouped together in strip centers or near one another across the country. There are multiple benefits, but the most obvious is the foot traffic generated and similar consumer profiles of the brands. Parent companies will also often times look to open multiple brands under their umbrella in a given market.

Once the market has been tested and proven, data exists to show that and can help not only paint that picture for retailers you are trying to recruit, but also bring some certainty for franchisers that a market exists for the product or service they are investing in.

Some citizens might question why the city should invest taxpayer dollars in recruiting retailers, which tend to come unbidden when there’s money to be made. Can you explain?

Through our partnership with Buxton, we are learning how to recruit retailers that are a strong fit for our community and being armed with the information to get in front of them. While we can certainly take the wait-and-see approach as we have in the past, you could make that argument for all types of economic development. There’s a reason why being passive doesn’t position you for maximum potential. If you take into consideration how many cities there are across the United States that share almost the exact consumer market that Cedar Rapids has, and compare that against the relatively small number of stores, restaurants and service providers that are opening new locations in a given year, you start to see just how competitive it can be.

Additionally, the payback can be substantial. Just looking at property taxes alone, in 2014, the average fast food restaurant in Cedar Rapids paid between $30-$50,000 a year in property taxes. Even small boutique shops can generate substantial taxes. So when you look at what grocery stores, strip centers and larger developments generate that go back into the budgets of the city, school district and county for public services, it doesn’t take long for the financial benefit to kick in.

Also, with the Flood Mitigation Program sales tax increment and Paving for Progress being funded through a local option sales tax, the more retailers we have in the community, the more money is being generated to fund these public projects.

When are we going to get a Cheesecake Factory?

Ahhh, Cedar Rapids’ most frequently revived rumor. Unfortunately, I do not believe we have the current customer profile for a Cheesecake Factory, as they have become increasingly more selective on site selection criteria, looking for communities with above-average household incomes in densely populated urban areas… That said, never say never. We have some amazingly persuasive agents out there working their magic, and with all of the changes occurring in Cedar Rapids, I’m hopeful that our future will continue to see positive growth and we will be the kind of community all retailers will want to be in.

Biographical Info
Age: 32
Education: BA Psychology, BA Political Science, University of Iowa; MA Political Science, Iowa State University
Family: Husband, Andrew
Interests: International travel, debating politics and philosophy, live music, listening to podcasts, oddball Internet videos, spending time with family and friends.