MDD members question value of Retail Strategies contract; staff urges continued use while auditing benefits
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Summary
Board members criticized the existing Retail Strategies contract as low-value and asked staff to press the vendor for more in-person engagement; staff and several members said it is premature to cancel an already-paid second-year contract and recommended assessing results before the third-year payment.
The Argyle Municipal Development District reviewed its contract with Retail Strategies and compared alternative market-recruitment proposals from The Retail Coach and Buxton. Harrison presented the contracts and explained that because the district has paid for the second year of the three-year Retail Strategies contract, cancelling now would forfeit the remaining prepaid months: "their contract is pretty clear that if we were to end the contract with them...the money that we've already paid them, they would keep as earned," Harrison said.
Staff recommended continuing the Retail Strategies relationship through the paid second year and extracting more value from the engaged services, then re-evaluating before committing to a third year. "I think it is a better option in staff's mind to continue with the contract with Retail Strategies as it is now, try to get the best value out of it as we can over the next 9 months," Harrison said.
Several board members expressed frustration with the vendor's prior work. One board member said, "I think this is a complete waste of money, and it has been for years," and another called the materials "fluff and not a whole lot of substance." Several members suggested convening a workshop with developers and local stakeholders to clarify whether retailers want new construction or existing spaces and to identify what marketing or infrastructure assistance would be most effective.
Members discussed alternatives: The Retail Coach (whose president, Aaron Farmer, has worked with Argyle intermittently since 2010) and Buxton submitted proposals, but staff said the proposals looked similar to Retail Strategies and might not deliver materially different results. A board member suggested using other analytics tools (for example, cell‑phone–based foot‑traffic analytics such as Placer.ai) to quantify event draws and visitor origin as part of recruitment and marketing strategy.
The board did not vote to cancel or replace Retail Strategies. Instead, members asked staff to press the vendor for more measurable in‑person engagement and to present an evaluation of the vendor's deliverables and upcoming research/analysis before deciding whether to fund a third year of service.
