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RETAIL
Grow retail offerings and strengthen commercial nodes
The retail market provides many assets to community. Retail development supports
community as well as quality of life within a neighborhood or city. When done well, retail can
create great places, serve resident and business needs and be a catalyst for new investment.
Retail is also an important source of General Fund revenue for the City through sales tax
collection.
While retail plays a critical role in
supporting a healthy local economy,
demand for retail space is shrinking
nationally and regionally due to
competition with e-commerce and the
consolidation of national retail brands.
According to the real estate brokerage
community that participated in the
update to Morgan Hill 2035, Morgan Hill
is considered 'over-retailed' relative to the
size of its population. Moreover, the City
is located within the same trade area as Oakridge Mall in South San Jose and the Outlets in
Gilroy, making it difficult for Morgan Hill to compete for new retail not represented in the
market.
Given these dynamics, fostering successful retail and increasing the
City’s sales tax revenues will require careful planning to concentrate
retail in the most appropriate locations that are most likely to be
successful (a strategy that is sometimes known as “retail pruning”). For
example, the Downtown Specific Plan calls for the Morgan Hill
Shopping Center on Dunne and Monterey in Morgan Hill to be
redeveloped into a mix of housing and retail uses. Other shopping
centers may need to be upgraded and updated in order to meet
modern retailers’ space needs
Did you know?
As a category,
Morgan Hill has a
31% general retail
sales tax leakage