I'm a realist when it comes to growth and development in business, but I think there is plenty of room for retail to grow if done smartly. The problem is that the demographic data really needs to be looked at with a highly analytic eye.
At first glance, it might seem that a brand name like Whole Foods could never make it in Detroit, for example. With Farmer Jack failing, how could we ever support a Whole Foods?
Fact is, I'm not sure that we can.
But I would also argue that the demographic in this little pocket of Midtown/Downtown is worlds away from the overall demographic of the city. In fact, while we have yet to demonstrate that a Meijer -- which operates 24 hours on a gigantic footprint -- could survive in the city limits, a small-sized Whole Foods on Woodward could do well for a few reasons:
[[1) Whole Foods is not just a grocery store, it's also a restaurant. In fact, I would surmise that their prepared foods, buffet, deli, etc. have much higher profit margins because the food is marked up for the convenience and service. And if Detroit has one thing to offer, rock bottom service wages is it. You can't do much to change the price of cereal. But food service has all sorts of ways to fiddle with profit margins if you can just get people in the door.
And Whole Foods is kind of name that would do it.
[[2) There is a stark income gap between midtown/downtown and the rest of Detroit. They might as well be two different cities. Midtown has median household income exceeding 70k, right? City of Detroit is less than
half that.
[[3) Midtown/Downtown has a secondary population of commuters that come from the suburbs. It's much more rare to hear of someone commuting from their residence in Troy to their job at 7 Mile and Kelly Rd. But there a many who come from Troy and work downtown. Now if you're from Royal Oak or Berkley, are you honestly going to be excited about a Kroger opening up on Woodward? No. But those same people will go to Whole Foods for lunch or drop by there on the way home to pick up groceries rather than drive out to Birmingham.
[[4) Midtown/Downtown has another population set of college students. Most of these college students commute. The ones that do live near campus are bringing the income average *down*, not up. But that demographic has more disposable income than their household income depicts. This demographic might only show up with incomes of $20,000 but with student loans supporting their living expenses, they don't shop the same way as a family of four with the main earner making $10/hr.
[[5) "Price out the riff-raff". I hate to say it, because its one of the uglier truths of our society, but people with money don't like to share space with people in poverty. Living here in the downtown area, I shop at Honey Bee market twice a month and Meijer out in the suburbs twice a month. Many of my friends skip the Honey Bee and just drive out to Meijer every week.
Now how many grocery stores do I pass driving from here to Allen Park, or here to Troy. PLENTY. There are hundreds in the city alone. So why do we spend the time, gas money, etc? In short, the "Whole Foods Crowd" doesn't want to congregate with the "Wal-Mart Crowd" to be blunt.
So now the question is, are there enough of the Whole Foods crowd in Midtown? It's strange when you think about it...opening up a Meijer or Kroger won't make suburban commuters change their behavior because they could just go to one closer to their house. But Whole Foods? I'm willing to bet that Grosse Pointers working in the City would be thrilled to stop there on the way home than make the drive in the Bloomfield store.
I hope.