Urbana student consultants outline plan to revive Philo Road corridor

Student consultants from the Geese College of Business presented a market- and field-based plan to Urbana officials on May 7 aimed at reversing long-running business closures and capturing local retail demand on Philo Road.

The students told city leaders their analysis of U.S. Census and local Sage data shows roughly $224,000,000 in resident spending in categories such as food, apparel and health care inside the corridor trade area, and estimated that $164,000,000 of that demand—about 73.5 percent—is currently captured outside the corridor. "So this is not a low demand corridor," said Rodolfo Colina Laredo, the student team leader, and added the question is "where is all this money going to?"

The presentation combined quantitative modeling with in-person interviews. The team reported significant unmet demand in health care and pharmacy services (they estimated $52.9 million in unmet demand in health care and drugs) and low capture rates for restaurants and apparel. Rodolfo said re-occupying the vacant Walgreens with a pharmacy could raise the health-care capture rate from…