The Planning Commission debuted its recently completed Commercial Landscapes series at an event featuring experts who shared ways for municipalities, developers, and consultants to better position themselves for economic development success. The series includes four reports that discuss how current trends are affecting office parks, retail, brownfield, and train station areas throughout the county and provides recommendations for the continued health of our commercial landscapes. 

The reports focus on brownfields, transit oriented development, greyfields, and office parks and are now available on Chester County’s Planning Commission website.

We would like to extend a special thanks to the event’s featured speaker, James Cook, the Americas Director of Retail Research for Jones Lang Lasalle (JLL) who spoke about how time, touch, and money are the critical indicators of the success of retail in today’s market. The expert panel that joined James Cook to round out the event included Tom Barton, Principal at Barton Partners; Mimi Gleason, Township Manager at West Whiteland Township; and MaryFrances McGarrity, Senior Vice President of Business Development Services at the Chester County Economic Development Council. The panel shared municipal, developer, and economic development perspectives on how to attract “good” development, how the office market and office parks are changing, and how placemaking and experience-based development are affecting the way suburban places develop.

With an attendance approaching 75 people, the event kicked off distribution of our reports successfully. The Planning Commission would like to thank the panelists, guest speaker, and sponsors for all of their support. Additional research on national retail trends that James Cook and his team at JLL have produced, as podcasts and traditional research reports are available.