Part 3: Best practices William C. Shelton (The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville News belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville News, its staff or publishers.) We usually get better results when we improve upon a wheel's design rather than reinventing the wheel itself. If we wish to breathe new life into Somerville's squares, we can learn from other communities who over the past three decades have resuscitated their own main streets.

They appropriate many of the techniques that malls use. And they combine those techniques with the innate appeal of shopping, dining, and encountering acquaintances in one's own neighborhood with its unique environment, history, and sense of community.

Mall managers have many advantages. They can adjust the mix of tenant businesses to provide a broad range of goods and services, recognizing that customers tend to purchase certain goods at the same time, such as clothing, shoes, and jewelry, or home furnishings. Through such linkages, customers who are drawn to one mall store will shop at others as well, and will come from longer distances.

Threshold requirements for a shopping district's success are cleanliness, friendliness, and safety. No matter what other improvements a commercial district or shopping center might make, without these three essentials, it will fail.

Malls provide continuous cleaning, maintenance, and unobtrusive security. They create a physical design that will make customers feel welcome while ensuring that they receive maximum exposure to tenant businesses' merchandising.

Malls contractually require tenants to have common appearances and layouts. Tenants must remain open whenever the mall is open-usually 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.

Malls assess tenants for shared marketing and customer services to improve the effectiveness of all. Shared advertising allows for scale economies. A full-page newspaper ad, for example, costs less than eight one-eighth-page ads. It also markets the mall as a place and an experience rather than merely a collection of goods and services.

Compare this to the challenges of revitalizing urban squares. Store spaces are often small, limiting the inventory mix. And they lack the big windows with merchandise displays that draw people in.

The mix of goods and services is narrow, dominated by convenience and personal-service uses rather than comparison-shopping uses. Businesses like tax preparers or check-cashing operations may be in the most visible locations because rents are relatively low, rather than in upper-floor offices. There is little or no shared effort to market the district as a whole.

Merchants and property owners may not have the money to keep their properties maintained. Consumers with cars don't want the hassle of negotiating narrow streets and searching for parking. Some merchants keep their curbs and sidewalks clean while others don't, and trash can migrate down the street.

We don't have mall managers who can impose their will. We have stakeholders-neighbors, property owners, merchants, city officials, bankers, community organizations-whose interests will benefit from a revived commercial district. Those interests are never fully aligned, so simply getting them to agree upon a joint course of action is difficult.

Effective revitalization starts with an economic analysis. It measures the demand for different goods or services within the square's trade area and identifies new business opportunities. It assesses the preferences of people who would come to shop and merchants who would consider locating there, placing these insights in the context of relevant trends. It determines a district's assets and liabilities. It identifies resources that can support revitalization.

Any group of stakeholders has a hundred different ideas regarding what should be done, realistic and unrealistic. The loudest voices don't always pull plans in the best direction. An effective economic analysis based on good data can facilitate consensus and set realistic vision boundaries. It informs the development and management of the strategy. It will provide solid information that can be used to recruit merchants.

It will identify leverage points. Since stakeholders' resources are always limited, they must be focused so as to yield the greatest results. The most common leverage points are business mix, street appearance, district promotion, cleanliness and maintenance, traffic and parking, building conditions, public infrastructure, and the quality of the businesses' management. The most important levers, and how they can be moved, will differ from community to community.

Organizing stakeholders and agreeing on what to do is often the greatest challenge. There are a variety of established forms for such organization. I'll mention just two, since they are relevant to Somerville.

City Redevelopment Authorities can get permission from a state to draw a boundary around a redevelopment district. As the property values within the boundary increase, the corresponding increase in taxes goes into a fund to make improvements that will spur more business activity and increased value. The redevelopment authority can issue bonds to support major improvements. Future increases in tax revenues pay off the bonds. City officials are considering such a plan for Somerville Avenue.

Since 1976, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has promoted its Main Streets program. Today more than 1,200 local Main Street organizations focus on four areas: organizing stakeholders, designing the streetscape, promoting the district, and economic restructuring.

The City of Somerville is supporting Main Street programs in East Somerville and Union Square. In the last two columns, we'll look at how these organizations are applying best practices to revitalize their neighborhoods.