C’is the lot of medium -sized cities that have responded – with, certainly, a delayed time compared to metropolitan areas – to the sirens of the supposed Eldorado of large commercial areas on the outskirts. We leave the city centers to offer size XXL stores, with cheaper rents and free parking. At the same time, the city center, thus emptied of part of its commercial content, struggles to counter the enthusiasm generated by the peripheral consumerist abundance.
Agen did not escape it. Its O’Green Agen-Boé zone emerged in 2013, and has since stopped welcoming national brands and franchises, the vast majority of them. An open-air area, with a tree here and there, bitumen and an omnipresence of the car. It was at the same time that the municipality of Agen embarked on the pedestrianization of its city center, imagining a space for wandering, walking and purchasing, with parking parks on the outskirts and no longer in the heart. As in many medium-sized cities, the balance between the two proposals has not yet taken place, and the imbalance was at the expense of the city center.
In the rue des Martyrs-de-la-Résistance, in Agen, remain a few heavy goods vehicles that have resisted the years, and have set up new ready-to-wear shops where the products and the experience offered are very different from national franchises.
Loïc Déquier/So
From trade to housing
Agen’s heart attendance has dropped. Unanimous observation. Especially when, as in a part of the pedestrian boulevard and certain adjacent streets, the multiplication of empty windows (“hollow teeth”) puts a whim with the attractiveness of the places. “The development of O’green did not accompany itself at the time with a revision of the commercial perimeter of the city center, regrets Clémence Brandolin-Robert, first assistant. We were subject to regulation of protection of the commercial linear. This meant no change in destination (from salesperson to housing) for the ground floor of buildings. However, in certain streets which were no longer traders, it was necessary to move on. We had to loosen the constraint for the benefit of housing. »»
Some streets have lost their “trader” character. The solution to avoid the show of hollow teeth is to change the destination of these ground floor of commercial buildings in housing.
Loïc Déquier/So
Land consolidation takes years … a time little compatible with commercial time ”
Put life in the city center when many buildings with stores on the ground floor had no other access to the floors, a puzzle. “Land consolidation takes years … a time that is not very compatible with commercial time,” adds the elected official. Nevertheless, we see the end. »»
Even if, with the new housing, a new problem has emerged: parking. Proposals emerged at the entrances to the city center while the parking spaces on the public highway were disappearing: paid parking at the station, and free parking on the Gravier esplanade with shuttle. Not enough to wrap some grumpy accustomed to park in front of their favorite shop and somewhat refractory to walk 200 or 300 meters. “And a beautiful argument behind which some traders hide to justify the drop in attendance,” says Sylvain Dabos, president of the Union of Merchants and Artisans of Agen. When we create entertainment in the city center, people have no difficulty park. Not to mention that, seven Saturdays a year, during parties and entertainment, all the city center car parks are free.
The Les Prun’elles Associative Boutique, born under the Cornières, offers local handicrafts with a renewal of exhibitors every month.
Loïc Déquier/So
“The merchant who returned his collection and awaited the customer behind his counter is ancient history”
The customer experience
What is the problem, then? “It is settled: the rebalancing between peripheral zone and downtown is under, positive Sylvain Dabos. The commercial perimeter must be reduced and change the proposal. The merchant who returned his collection and awaited the customer behind his counter is ancient history. We have to stand out from mass distribution, offer quality products, and must be at the forefront of knowledge of their history, their origin. The customer must live in the city center a unique experience, with concepts, large premises shared by several activities… ”
And, in fact, the trend has been started in Agen for two or three years. Here, ready-to-wear is high-end or original, sometimes coupled with another activity such as a nail bar. A coffee that offers gluten -free homemade pastries but also decoration and Indian numerology and medicine workshops; An associative shop of craftsmen from the region with different guests every month; a cat bar; A second -hand shop. Communication? On Instagram, with the look of the day that will bring the client to the store, home coaching around morphology and colorimetry, etc. “You have to marke the customer experience, and the municipality will be present on this front,” adds Clémence Brandolin-Robert, when the Lot-et-Garonne Chamber of Commerce and Industry imagines an incubator of downtown shops.