Plano offers grant money to improve aging shopping centers

The city of Plano hopes a new economic development grant program will encourage owners of aging shopping centers to make improvements.

The retail revitalization program aims to increase property values while bringing decades-old strip shopping centers up to modern standards.

Green Vine Market has given new life to the former Safeway grocery store inside a shopping center located on K Avenue near the heart of downtown Plano.

The grocer, emulating Whole Foods but with a Middle Eastern twist, opened several years ago and received some funding from the city to make improvements to the outside facade, according to Plano's Director of Special Services Peter Braster.

"I think it's an excellent example of what a partnership like this can do," said Braster. "It looks alive and vibrant and someplace you want to go shop."

Braster and Green Vine Market's co-owner Zaid Hammad agree. When it comes to the rest of the shopping center, it could use a little TLC.

This month, Plano approved a new cash grant hoping to see more transformations across the city.

"We're in an aging community and so as we move from east to west, Plano started on the eastside, we have some aged places," said Braster. "Some places are just fine, some places need a little extra help and this program is just to do that."

Plano's retail revitalization program reimburses eligible shopping center owners 10%, give or take, for making improvements to their properties like perhaps adding a fresh paint job, or adding new landscaping or signage.

Interested parties go through an application process in which the City Council will determine the amount of money to be reimbursed upon completion of the improvements with proof.

Reimbursements are paid out after the agreed project is completed without requiring increased sales tax revenue like other cities require, which can take years, he said.

Owners are also free to choose whichever contractor they want for the improvements and are not required to only use companies in Plano.

Braster said this is one way for the city to help bring older properties up to 'modern standards.'

"Centers developed in Plano's early days of growth, so you're talking about the 70s, 80s, 90s, pre-date a lot of our ordinances that talk about landscaping, lighting and how those should be designed," said Braster. "We're looking for what kind of investment you're willing to make and to make it even better."

Not everyone is convinced the program will be popular among owners.

"In my opinion, it's only really valuable for someone who was going to already do it," said Michael Zimmermann of Green Earth Realty. "It's not enough to incentivize somebody to do something they weren't already going to do."

Zimmermann owns shopping centers across the country and DFW, including The Village in Plano.

"It could incentivize me to do [improvements] it a little sooner if I had planned on doing it sometime in the near future, maybe it' 'll push it up to get the money, but it's not enough to make me want to do something."

Though he credits the city for the most straightforward proposal he's seen compared to offers other cities make full of stipulations, Plano's program is just not worth initiating improvements for a 10% return on his investment.

Redoing an entire shopping center can run well beyond $1 million, he said.

"If you want somebody to do something they didn't plan on anyways, [the reimbursement] then it needs to be much higher," he said. 

The city argues the grant, paid for by property tax revenue, is meant to help make improvements and not cover the entire cost.

"We try to keep that into about 10% of the overall spend, that's just a really comfortable number for us and we find that that's enough to push people to do an even better job," said Braster. "I think if they understood how simple the program is everybody would want to do it. I think other places make things more complicated so they're wary of getting involved with local government but here in Plano, we're the City of Excellence so we do things better."