| Buxton offers retail hope for Martin | By: By Sabrina Bates, Chief Staff Writer
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Martin Community Development Director Kimberly Craddock, alderman Bill Harrison and alderman David Belote take notes during a conference call with representatives from the Buxton Group during the Martin City Board’s formal session Monday evening. | | After months of anticipation, the complete report that will provide the tools the City of Martin needs to recruit new retailers into the area is in its final countdown. The Board of Mayor and Aldermen went out on a limb to contract with a group known as Buxton that promised a detailed marketing report that would match the retailers with the city.
Months of legwork has shown results in the form of spending habits and demographics, only two of the tools the City of Martin was expecting to see throughout its contract with Buxton.
“We will be getting the final report this week. They have done a very good job, but it isn’t over once the report comes in. There is a lot of hard work that we have to put in,” Martin Mayor Randy Brundige commented.
Brundige explained that once the city receives the final report that shows the best retail matches for recruiting into the area, conference calls, visits to home offices and recruiting could commence.
“We have to keep building a rapport with the people in order to recruit,” the Martin mayor added.
The most recent report received in November shows a list of retailers that Buxton considered the best matches for Martin and the areas within a 15-minute drive time of the town. Those retailers shown where none are known to be within an area of 50 miles from Martin were considered “good matches” for recruitment.
Brundige explained the reports were taken using information such as the spending habits of the number of dominant households in Martin and within a 15-minute drive time of Martin.
“This is anywhere from Dresden, Greenfield, Union City, Fulton, Sharon and it was a total population of 37,458 people. This was not completely tied to just college students or just people living in Martin,” Brundige said.
While the final results are not in yet, Brundige said a family clothing store exceeded well in every aspect of the profile match process initiated by Buxton.
Peebles, Ruby Tuesday, Chili’s, Home Depot, Kohl’s and Lonestar Steakhouse also matched well with the area according to the Buxton report.
A conference call between the Martin Board of Mayor and Aldermen and Buxton was scheduled for the formal session of the city board meeting Monday night, which offered the last stage of the Buxton Group’s proposal and it will be the first stage of recruitment efforts for the Martin Community Development Director and Brundige.
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