Fort Worth’s Renaissance Square Launches on Popularise

By John Flint, Lockard Companies

Lockard Companies got involved in Renaissance Square City of Forth Worth in 2009.  It’s hard to believe that it’s already been three years. But when you factor economic downturn and the pullback in retail development, we’re actually quite blessed to be as far along as we are today: Walmart will open this spring, and a host of other stores will open in the summer. Great progress is being made, but there is still much work to be done.

That’s where Popularise comes in…

When we came across Popularise, light bulbs immediately went off. The idea made complete sense: harness the power of social media and crowdsourcing to enhance the development. 

How will this work? 

By giving the community a voice into what stores, shops, and offices open up for business. Most shopping centers or mixed-use developments are a function of demographic research and supply and demand. And honestly, the demand piece was a little tricky to figure out, which is why the demographic information was so important. 

But with Popularise, developers have a new tool to harness the voice of the community in a positive and productive way that helps shape the tenant mix. If hundreds or thousands of people say they want a Chick-fil-A at Renaissance Square, you better believe that we are going to do everything we can to get Chick-fil-A in our project. And frankly, knowing that we have the community’s support can really help us close the deal!

Community driven approach.

In a neighborhood like Southeast Fort Worth, which has been deprived of retail development for so long, we wanted to avoid the thought, and even the perception, that we know what’s best for the community. Our company does this sort of thing for a living, so honestly, we do have a pretty good idea of what works and what doesn’t. But we never want to be the sort of company that arrogantly proclaims what a community needs and never asks the community what they think. Popularise is our tool to ask, “What would you build here?”

Of course, there are economic realities to real estate development. Will we promise that the most popular ideas will be included in Renaissance Square? Unfortunately we cannot make that promise.  But what we do promise is that we will do our level best, within the constraints that we have, to listen to your voice, and try our best to bring you what you want. If you read some of the other posts on this blog (especially the Coin Laundry), I think you’ll get a good sense of what we’re hoping to accomplish with Popularise: gather ideas, analyze the data, and put our brokers to work on bringing those ideas to fruition!

Tell us “What would you build here?”

So send us your ideas, follow our Drawing Board, and let’s build Renaissance Square together!