Micro-Fulfillment As A Solution For Those Deep Downtown Storefronts?
Deep storefronts – dating to a time when retailers stored inventory in the backs of their stores – have long posed a leasing challenge in older Downtown and Main Street districts. I wonder, though, whether the growing interest in so-called “micro-fulfillment centers” might offer some sort of solution, at least in higher-density markets. MFC’s are small warehouses placed in tight urban spaces by retailers, manufacturers and third-party logistics providers so as to speed delivery of online orders to city-dwelling customers. Municipalities should not be permitting them in the fronts of such spaces, which ought to remain for consumer-facing retail uses, but, in a sort of “Back to the Future” scenario, this second-order effect of online shopping’s rise could ultimately work to the benefit of our Downtowns by increasing tenant demand. Michael J. Fox would be impressed.