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York council approves up to $40,000 Retail Coach contract to recruit businesses
Summary
The council approved a professional services agreement with Retail Coach LLC not to exceed $40,000 to conduct retail recruitment and submarket analysis using cellphone data and related research; the contract is legally one year with renewable options.
The City of York council voted to approve a professional services agreement with Retail Coach LLC, authorizing spending up to $40,000 to create a retail recruitment and development strategy.
Dr. Crawford described the scope: the firm will analyze cellphone and other customer data to identify retail “leakage” and submarket differences across the city, and will represent York at recruitment conferences. "A key component of this service is to have people come in and provide cell phone data and other information about who the customers are ... what are our retail leakages," Dr. Crawford said. He said the vendor was the lowest bidder in an RFP process and had positive references from other Nebraska cities.
Council members asked about the contract length and whether results would be available in time to inform the comprehensive plan. Staff said the city’s RFP allowed for multiyear work; the selected bidder proposed a three-year scope but the city’s legal contract is for a single year that is renewable. Dr. Crawford told the council he expects initial data pulls to occur quickly and to be ready in advance of the first comprehensive plan discussions.
Council approved the contract after brief discussion. The presentation emphasized using submarket analysis to tailor recruitment for different parts of town (interchange area vs. downtown) and supporting existing merchants with customer-insight data.
Next steps: staff will execute the contract, begin the initial data pulls and share findings with the council as they become available.
