Q&A: Robert Gibbs on the downcast state of retail

New Urban News Article with images, 4/1/2009

The current downturn, says a top retail expert, is “shaking out plans and centers that were poorly conceived.”

Robert Gibbs, head of Gibbs Planning Group in Birmingham, Michigan, has advised town center developers, municipalities, and new urbanists through good times and bad. He is known especially for his consulting on retail development. In the current economic crisis, New Urban News decided to get Gibbs’s views on how new urban retailers and their centers are doing and what strategies they should pursue. Gibbs was interviewed by Senior Editor Philip Langdon.