Audio file
Tenn Retail Alliance_mixdown.mp3
Transcript
00:00:05 Susan Robertson
Hi and welcome to In Touch with Tennessee, a podcast of the University of Tennessee Institute
For Public Service.
00:00:12 Susan Robertson
Tennessee cities are the economic engine of our state.
00:00:15 Susan Robertson
For many communities, sales tax is the predominant revenue stream to provide services to the citizens of Tennessee.
00:00:23 Susan Robertson
The Municipal Technical Advisory Service, or MTAS, created the Tennessee Retail Alliance in 2019 to provide a vehicle to assist communities in promoting economic development through retail recruitment to increase jobs and increase their sales tax revenue.
00:00:41 Susan Robertson
Because MTAS strives to improve the lives of Tennesseans by providing the best customer service to our cities, they identified a need for additional support for cities and towns as they work on retail recruitment efforts.
00:00:55 Susan Robertson
The Tennessee Retail Alliance will address this need.
00:00:59 Susan Robertson
Our guests today are Municipal Management and Fnance Program Manager Angie Carrier from MTAS and Farragut Town Administrator David Smoak.
00:01:08 Susan Robertson
To talk about the Tennessee Retail Alliance, welcome.
00:01:13 David Smoak
Thank you.
00:01:13
Thank you.
00:01:15 Susan Robertson
So, Angie, tell us what led to the formation of the Tennessee Retail Alliance.
00:01:21 Angie Carrier
Well, I began working here in 2018 with MTAS and
00:01:26 Angie Carrier
Identified that need that you know, we provide all kinds of consultant services to our communities.
00:01:33 Angie Carrier
And the one thing that we did not address is retail recruitment or economic development.
00:01:39 Angie Carrier
And I wanted to fill that gap and so created a focus group.
00:01:46 Angie Carrier
And looked at what the needs are of our communities across the state and tried to adjust what the retail alliance would be based on those needs and so
00:01:59 Angie Carrier
Just began doing the grassroots effort, talking to our communities, talking to cities and talking to the state.
00:02:07 Angie Carrier
With ECD and some other agencies that provide retail recruitment efforts and created this three-tier approach that
00:02:19 Angie Carrier
Is the Tennessee Retail Alliance.
00:02:22 Susan Robertson
So, talk to us about how the alliance works.
00:02:26 Angie Carrier
Well, it will be working with the fact that we are a nonprofit and of course we're under the umbrella of MTAS.
00:02:38 Angie Carrier
What we're looking at is that three-tiered approach of one providing a database, we're looking at entering into a contract with Placer AI and it is a robust amount of information.
00:02:54 Angie Carrier
With it we can identify.
00:02:58 Angie Carrier
You know the needs as far.
00:03:00 Angie Carrier
Whereas leakage reports anything that, like a community has that's similar to your size and say they have a Chick-fil-A and you don't and and do you have those same qualities that city has?
00:03:15 Angie Carrier
You could compare certain things, and you can identify, you know.
00:03:21 Angie Carrier
Available inventory property creates demographic reports, drive times, circle radiuses, things like that.
00:03:28 Angie Carrier
So that's one piece.
00:03:29 Angie Carrier
Is that for the retail alliances to provide that service to be able to provide those reports to the communities that are members.
00:03:38 Angie Carrier
Also, we would like to do roundtables across the state, just trends and and economic development talk to local developers.
00:03:50 Angie Carrier
To panel discussions and just to.
00:03:53 Angie Carrier
Educate a lot of the communities on how to use those reports, how to contact developers, what are they looking for and just get them.
00:04:05 Angie Carrier
Educated on the talk and the lingo and and how to approach economic development, and the third tier is conferences.
00:04:16 Angie Carrier
ICSC provides conferences on a national and international level as well as regionally, and we would like to create a marketing aspect of marketing the state, but also highlighting the communities that are members within the state and and they can provide their marketing tools, their reports
00:04:37 Angie Carrier
That and provide meeting space for those communities to meet with developers and retailers and to help them recruit that
00:04:47 Angie Carrier
Retail spot that they're wanting to fill, so those 3.
00:04:53 Susan Robertson
So how important is retail to municipalities?
00:04:58 Angie Carrier
Uhm, well, it provides another revenue source.
00:05:02 Angie Carrier
You don't want to be.
00:05:06 Angie Carrier
Totally dependent on property tax and sales tax is a is a good offset I mean.
00:05:08 Susan Robertson
All right.
00:05:13 Angie Carrier
And David knows this with Farragut since they don't even need
00:05:17 Angie Carrier
A tax at this.
00:05:20 Angie Carrier
So you have the property tax, but you also provide services and needs to those folks that live in your community.
00:05:29 Angie Carrier
They can go eat, they can shop in your own.
00:05:33 Angie Carrier
City limits and it provides that convenience that quality of life that a lot of municipalities look for.
00:05:40 Angie Carrier
Also, you can use it to create
00:05:46 Angie Carrier
A attraction to your city where you know you're getting revenue from people that don't live there.
00:05:51 Susan Robertson
All right.
00:05:51 Angie Carrier
And so those are some options and David you can add to that.
00:05:55 David Smoak
I think for cities, especially mine, you know 60 percent of our revenue comes from sales tax. And so making sure that you have a
00:06:04 David Smoak
Really valid and growing community of retail sales for us is vitally important.
00:06:11 David Smoak
So This is why this is such a good program for us to be in.
00:06:15 Susan Robertson
OK. So David, you're the town administrator in Farragut, a suburb of Knoxville. Describe for our listeners, Farragut.
00:06:24 David Smoak
It was founded in 1980, we are a relatively young community. If you think about it in Tennessee.
00:06:34 David Smoak
Take care of the housing and the suburbs and the people that were living in the communities out in Farragut.
00:06:39 David Smoak
They wanted to kind of set their own pace and their own way into the future.
00:06:45 David Smoak
And so they've done that and I think the board of Mayor and Alderman going forward has continued that legacy.
00:06:52 David Smoak
One of the things though, when you do that is, well, how do you mix residential with commercial with office, industrial, all the different things that you look at in a community?
00:07:01 David Smoak
And so for us, we've been very fortunate that we have a pretty large regional retail shopping
00:07:05 David Smoak
area in our community that drives a lot of traffic.
00:07:09 David Smoak
We have interstates that go through our community that drives a lot of traffic to our area, and so we have been able to.
00:07:15 David Smoak
Thankfully grow without having a property tax in the town, but what that means, though, is that our retail sales have to continue increasing each and every year.
00:07:24 David Smoak
And fortunately, just five years ago, we were about 50 percent of our overall sales tax revenue or overall tax revenue was from sales tax. Now it's about 60 percent. So that's really grown a lot.
00:07:36 David Smoak
Just in the last five years.
00:07:38 Susan Robertson
So what would you say to other cities and towns about becoming a part of the Retail Alliance?
00:07:44 David Smoak
Well, I think you know for us, we have used retail recruiters in the past and they do a great job.
00:07:49 David Smoak
They really get you in front of a lot of people that you don't really get a chance to do that for
00:07:53 David Smoak
But for a lot of cities, it can be cost prohibitive.
00:07:56 David Smoak
It really is a pretty expensive proposition to kind of hire that group or whoever you may use out.
00:08:03 David Smoak
So I think with the retail alliance and what Angie has been able to put together, I think it's going to be good from the standpoint of cost effectiveness, giving you great data resources to really understand your community and then understand if you're looking for a certain type of retailer to come to your community.
00:08:18 David Smoak
What they're looking for, I think that's a key piece.
00:08:20
All right.
00:08:22 David Smoak
And as Angie said, you know, getting in front of retailers, if we can have a Tennessee contingent that goes out there that you can get more retailers to come and talk to say, Angie or other people that may be involved, I think that will help to drive them more to Tennessee and then also to our individual communities.
00:08:38 Susan Robertson
Oh, OK.
00:08:39 Susan Robertson
OK.
00:08:39 Susan Robertson
So how do cities get involved?
00:08:43 Angie Carrier
Contact me, contact their management consultant.
00:08:47 Angie Carrier
I've got a running list of those that are wanting to join, and as soon as we get the mechanisms, the finance mechanisms set up to receive money, we've got a structure.
00:09:03 Angie Carrier
In order to take that in and and so I'm guessing within a month or two, we will have our database set up and we'll get that moving.
00:09:11 Angie Carrier
And so they just contact their management consultant with MTAS or me.
00:09:16 Angie Carrier
Personally, I'm on the website MTAS website and.
00:09:19 Angie Carrier
Get in touch with me at angie.carrier@tennessee.edu
00:09:25 Susan Robertson
OK.
00:09:26 Susan Robertson
All right.
00:09:26 Susan Robertson
Well, thank you both for joining us today and thank you, listeners.
00:09:29 Susan Robertson
Be sure to follow In Touch with Tennessee on Apple and Google Podcasts or Spotify.
