Recordpub.com - Kent officials hope Vegas trip pays off Directors market city to help develop economy

By Matt Fredmonsky

Record-Courier staff writer

If what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, then the city of Kent is out of luck.

It's what happens outside of Las Vegas, based on relationships developed there, that the city's economic and community development directors are banking on.

Kent Community Development Director Gary Locke and Kent Economic Development Director Dan Smith recently returned from a three-day, two-night trip to the entertainment capital of the world where they worked the floors of the International Council of Shopping Centers spring conference. Billed as the world's largest retail real estate show, the conference averages 50,000 plus attendants through 1.5 million square feet of exhibit space.

Smith and Locke spent the majority of their time selling the Fairmount Properties planned downtown redevelopment project. They were aided in their task by the Buxton Co., a Texas-based firm the city contracted to profile Kent and act as a go between with potential retailers.

Smith said he and Locke were primarily marketing four areas -- Fairmount's project, the former Tops location, University Plaza and Brimfield Crossings near Interstate 76 -- as retail investment opportunities for corporate retailers.

"If ever there was a time for the city to go down there and participate, this was it," Smith said. "With Fairmount, Buxton and the city all attending at one time. Working the floor, the big theme of what we tried to do down there was college town. We talked with hundreds of people. Forty or 50 we had serious conversations with about the city of Kent and the college town opportunities."

According to the ICSC, its 75,000 members in the U.S., Canada and more than 80 other countries include shopping center owners, developers, managers, marketing specialists, investors, lenders, retailers and other professionals as well as academic and public officials. As the global industry trade association, ICSC links with more than 25 national and regional shopping center councils throughout the world.

Locke and Smith hit the conference prepared with informational literature and a DVD promoting the city. They also were armed with a list of 20 different retailers, ranging from clothing to book stores, whom Buxton had provided initial contact with.

After three days, both men left the Nevada desert with hundreds of new retail and development contacts. They both admitted it would be difficult to directly link any future economic growth to their conversations in Las Vegas. But they said the approximately $2,000 trip will pay for itself if one company chooses to locate in the Fairmount project or anywhere in the city based on the information Locke and Smith provided through the conference.

Locke said, though this was the city's first year attending the ICSC trade show, he doesn't expect to make the trip a yearly event.

"If we go about this the way we have traditionally ... you could spend all kinds of time on the phone and make all kinds of phone calls and really not get to the right person. On the other hand, going out there ... having that type of more direct contact in that kind of an environment is potentially more productive than just trying to make some cold phone calls and trying to find the right person."