Looking Back on the Case for an Apple Store in Freeport
As I write this, folks are camped out awaiting today’s opening of Maine’s first Apple Store at the Maine Mall Sprawl. OK, I knew in May when I wrote 6 Reasons Why Freeport is a Better Location for an Apple Store that the odds for Freeport were on the order of a lottery ticket. Still, to me, Apple remains precisely the type of innovative retailer that Freeport needs and that we hoped the new Freeport Village Station would attract.
The Apple post generated a healthy number of public comments, which you can read here, and lots of private emails that reminded me again of the perception challenges that Freeport faces. (For more on the perception topic, my What the World is Saying about Freeport Maine post is one of the most commented on so far.) Listening to what people had to say, three key themes came through:
1. Freeport is only for recreational, tourist shopping, not considered purchases like a computer. “Tourists aren’t going to buy a computer while on vacation.”
I don’t know the data, though I’m sure it’s true that a substantial amount of Freeport’s traffic is the requisite L.L. Bean drive by for every out of state visitor to Maine. Clearly, though, Freeport has its success stories of companies that are not primarily tourist driven, like Thomas Moser Furniture, Brown Goldsmiths and Chilton’s. We’ve got to figure out how to shed the “tourists only” rap.
2. Access and parking in Freeport is perceived to be worse than traditional malls. “In Freeport, it’s park a quarter mile away, walk for 15 minutes - often up a steep hill and outside in inclement weather - brave your way across an extremely busy street filled with poor drivers, and battle throngs of tourists who don’t know L.L. Bean from their behinds.”
This, as we’d say in software development, is a known bug. The new parking garage within Freeport Village Station is part of the solution. But in these comments and in the other streams of information I monitor about Freeport, this is a very real issue. A comprehensive transportation strategy for Freeport (that I wrote about here) has to tackle the perception challenges as well as the infrastructure.
3. Not everyone percieves the sprawl of the Maine Mall negatively. “At the Mall it’s park, walk in, buy, walk out.”
The ugliness and inconvenience of uncontrolled sprawl will keep some away from traditional mall zones, but it alone isn’t enough to steal a share of that traffic to Freeport. This points to how critical it is to forge a highly differentiated positioning strategy (more on that topic here) as this town evolves–a compelling case for Freeport beyond the suckiness of the growing mess of traditional megamall areas.
When the town agreed to support the Freeport Village Station retail development and parking garage with tax increment financing (in full disclosure I supported this TIF), we hoped and expected this project would be a game changer. Just the ticket to attracting a new and exciting category of retail stores like the Apple’s of the world. The developer, Berenson Associates, most definitely deserves our patience as they try to bring the project to market in this horrible economy, but it is hard not to be disappointed with the announced tenants so far. (There have been no new announcements, to my knowledge, since Nike, Brooks Brothers, L.L. Bean’s Outlet Store, Calvin Klein, Izod, Van Heusen and Geoffrey Bean were unveiled last March. There are 40 total store and restaurant locations in the project.)
The pitch for Apple had low probablity, for sure, but it highlights the work we have to do.
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