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S.A. - Page 9%6126 types such as medical centers, fitness gyms, banks, after school programs, and restaurants/bars (predominantly fast food/convenience).' Many retail stores prefer locations where there is strong pedestrian traffic and synergy with anchor retail stores and other retail businesses. Larger retail store formats like Target, Nordstrom Rack and Trader Joe's have very specific location requirements that are sometimes challenging to meet, even if there is a strong market opportunity in a community. Existing Conditions Downtown Redwood City has a diverse range of restaurants, from high-end establishments to fast food convenience and coffee caf6s, but lacks retail stores that sell hard and soft goods. The preponderance of restaurants and caf6s is typical of many downtowns in the region. Spaces that become available in downtowns are rented quickly by restaurants willing to pay higher rent. Certain brand retail stores are located near Downtown in Sequoia Station, but the Caltrain rail line creates a physical separation from the Downtown. Attachment A of this report displays demographic information and economic indicators for the population living within a one, two, and three-mile radius around Jefferson and Middlefield. Although new residential developments are changing the indicators, major brand retail stores respond better to locations that have stronger economic indicators. Attachment B compares demographic and economic indicators for Redwood City with the cities of Burlingame, Menlo Park, Mountain View, Palo Alto, and San Carlos. Like Redwood City, all of these cities have thriving downtowns, but most have more retail businesses. Burlingame and Downtown San Carlos currently have the greatest number of retail stores. Burlingame is noted for national brand stores that are supported by residents of Hillsborough, a town with a median household income of $216,292 and no available commercial space for retail businesses. San Carlos has several smaller, locally owned boutique stores (pet supplies, children's and women's clothing, accessories, specialty foods) supported by older, owner occupied family households with high educational attainment and very high median household income. New retail opportunities may become feasible for Redwood City's Downtown as the city's Downtown demographics change. However, more affluent communities such as Palo Alto are seeing traditional retail stores move from downtowns to mall locations as retailers prefer locations that offer greater visibility, and clustering with other stores. Another shared challenge for these downtowns is the competition for ground floor retail space from restaurants that can pay higher rents. Redwood City Downtown Retail Location Strengths and Weaknesses In addition to the economic and demographic analysis, two established retail brokers, Aaron Dan and Bruce Fraser, who are not members of the task force but who are involved with retail transactions on the Peninsula, provided their opinion of the Downtown location's strengths and weaknesses. Their perceptions, listed below, are important to developing appropriate retail strategies for the Downtown as they provide market perspective. These retail brokers are familiar with retail store location requirements such as size of store footprint, ingress and egress, traffic counts and circulation, amount and access to parking, loading, ceiling heights, height and width of front windows, and traffic, all of which 'Websites for two major brokerage firms show retail clients that reflect these types of retail businesses. City of Redwood City 1017 Middlefield Road, Redwood City, CA. 94063 Tel: 650-780-7000 www.redwoodcity.org 663