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Wagner County economic developer outlines retail recruitment findings, asks council for feedback
Summary
Economic developer Darla Heller presented Veil Strategies' first-four-month retail recruitment findings to the Wagoner Economic Development Authority, highlighting trade-area mapping, peer and gap analyses, Placer AI visit estimates and a top-10 site list, and asked the council to review and provide site-specific feedback.
Darla Heller, Wagner County economic developer, told the Wagoner Economic Development Authority on Dec. 1 that Veil Strategies has completed its initial 100-day assessment of retail opportunities for Wagner and nearby communities and is beginning outreach to prospects.
Heller said the consultant produced a two-page retail recruitment packet containing trade-area maps, peer analysis, gap analysis and traffic-count summaries intended to help national retailers and developers evaluate the community. She said county leaders contributed $50,000 to support the effort and that the city’s expected contribution to the contract work was in the $4,000–$5,000 range. “You can walk away with this and the research is just a complete benefit,” Heller said.
The presentation emphasized three practical findings: mobile-device visit data (Placer AI) ranks the Wagner Walmart and McDonald’s among regional stores by unique visits; a gap analysis shows local leakage on grocery spending; and two corridor “hard corners” (69/51 and 15th Street at 69) were identified as viable recruitment sites. Heller described the peer analysis as a way to find retailers in similar communities that are not yet in Wagner and said the firm has a list of roughly 30 prospects in the introduction stage.
Councilors asked technical questions about the maps and data sources. Heller explained the traffic and visit metrics were derived from cell‑phone pings and said the consultant likely referenced ODOT counts when possible. She acknowledged at least one annexation was missing from the packet and agreed to correct property-contact details and redistribute an updated PDF to the council. “If there’s something on this that you don’t see that you want in it, I mean, I could change it,” she said.
Heller described recommended next steps including continued relationship-building with target retailers, quarterly reporting to county and city staff, and one‑on‑one follow-ups with council members who want more detail. She invited council members to submit site-specific feedback and to use an online retail-recruitment training module available through the city’s economic development resources.
The Authority thanked Heller for the briefing; no formal action was taken on the presentation itself. Heller said Veil Strategies will continue work and report back quarterly to county and city leadership.
