Chuck D'Aprix Studying Community-Owned Stores

In an effort to bring focus to the growing phenomenon of community-owned stores, Chuck D'Aprix of Economic Development Visions, The Downtown Entrepreneurship Project and The Retail Incubation Group is undertaking a study of these innovative ventures.

D'Aprix says, " There are a number of city, town and community-owned stores across the United States and they are stabilizing downtowns and commercial districts. Yet there have been no major studies to date with respect to the economic impact they have on various locales."

According to D'Aprix he has assembled a multi-disciplinary team to not only assess the economic impact of city and town-owned stores, but also to publish a "how-to" guide for communities across North America. He will soon put up a website at cityownedstores.com to provide periodic updates on the report. The final report will be available at the same website. In addition he will be conducting a webinar to present report highlights. Cityownedstores.com will be up within the month.

This report comes on the heels of D'Aprix's well-received study of Retail Incubators. He says, " There was a lot of speculation about retail incubators but frankly no one had taken the time to delve into the topic and determine the best practices. Now we know what works and what doesn't with respect to Retail Incubators---we hope soon to have the same type of information for city, town and community-owned stores.

If you have information you would like to share with Chuck D'Aprix relative to community-owned stores he can be reached at www.economicvisions.com, www.downtownproject.com or www.retailincubation.com