What makes you love downtown Panama City?
Put another way, what makes you not love 23rd Street?
A recent article on downtown by local outlet WJHG painted a dire scene. Several downtown businesses had recently closed or moved out of the historic district. Downtown officials were clutching their pearls, scrambling for answers, panicked at the sudden calamity and worried for the future of downtown’s fragile gains.
The click bait worked. The unthinking comments followed.
Despite that sloppy, irresponsible piece, our downtown is growing and starting to thrive. We are in early days and have progress to make, but the trajectory is a good one. Our prospects are bright.
We should start this conversation now.
The chains are coming. The Shake Shacks and T-Mobiles and CVS’s are coming for our downtown.
I travel a lot for work, all over the country. In my free time and whenever possible, I go to the historic downtown of the town I’m in. It’s the same in most of them.
Local business, local business, Subway. Local business, Starbucks. Then Peet’s. Jackson Hewitt. Target. Fudpucker’s.
Local flavor made bland, local color made drab, local opportunity taken by businesses I can see anywhere, everywhere. It will happen to us if we let it. So let’s not.
Let’s ban chain businesses downtown.
It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if we prohibited them south of 13th Street, maybe 15th.
For clarity, I am not mounting an argument against franchises per se. I have dear friends who are or have been franchisees. It is clearly a successful business model that has generated untold wealth for people who might not have been able to start a business otherwise. My film company has done work for chains. I even enjoy tussling over which franchise has the best spicy chicken sandwich (it’s Wendy’s, by the way).
Franchises work, for what they are. But they are not what we need downtown.
If we want to hold and build our hard-earned momentum downtown, and see the district reach its full potential, we must grapple with this and make up our minds before the franchise lawyers arrive. They will arrive.
Two aspects of the franchise model would harm downtown: Franchise royalties and brand control.
According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, franchisors are paid, on average, 4-12 percent of a franchisee’s revenue monthly. That is the main way franchisors make their money.
Franchisees pay royalties in exchange for the franchisor’s proven business model and systems. The franchisor has done the hard work of building a successful enterprise – taken all the risks, suffered the bruises, smoothed the kinks – then sells that experience to others so those people can own a business they are pretty confident will work.
It’s an elegant, efficient method for enabling entrepreneurship and wealth creation, probably the most successful in history.
But the franchisor of any chain likely doesn’t live in our town. Neither do their shareholders. That means the 4-12 percent franchise royalties leave local hands and go to others in other towns. That money builds wealth in their places, for those who shop and invest and sponsor baseball teams in their communities.
Our money builds their towns.
What would you do differently if the IRS gave you back 4-12 percent of the tax money they collect from you every month? If that money stayed in your bank account? Would that affect your family’s health and wealth?
So for towns.
Brand control: The franchise model works because the founder builds a profitable brand, then replicates it as flawlessly as possible over and over.
The entire point is sameness. Predictability. Standardization. Generic.
Would those words make you proud if describing downtown Panama City? Are they what you seek out when you travel to other towns?
For those of you who frequent 30A, do you go because of all the chains or because they have almost none? Because Alys, Rosemary, and Seaside are just like other places or because they exist nowhere else?
We see the value of special for others, but sometimes forget we deserve it too.
The small and hyper-local is what strikes us about a town and what we remember. Where we take selfies and what we tell our friends about.
“You wouldn’t believe the Chipotle we tried in Coral Gables! Here’s a pic of my Lifestyle Bowl,” said no one ever.
No one feels proud of – or loyal to – a town because of Chipotle. We won’t keep our kids and talent in Panama City with chains.
Defining words for Historic Downtown Panama City should include diverse, unexpected, dynamic, different, special. Chains deliver none of that. Only local ownership can.
Example: When we launched Redfish Film Fest, so many local downtown merchants jumped in to play along. They hung our poster in their windows, made red shirts for their staff, changed to red light bulbs in their storefronts and over their outdoor seating, created special menu items and drinks. It was divine and blew our guests away. It was a fest unique in the world because our locals made it that way.
What are the chances a Panda Express would have done any of those things?
Local businesses customized their menus and decor for Redfish Film Fest.
Local businesses under local control are best for downtowns because they let the district act and grow as a single, unique organism, all entities benefitting the others and the people who live there. They are directly accountable to each other, their customers, and all have skin in the game.
You know, like a community.
Does 23rd St. feel like a community?
But Kevin, why do we need a formal ban? Won’t local building owners do what’s best for downtown?
Locals might, but a quarter or more of our downtown buildings are owned by people who do not live here and are not incentivized to care about preserving the charm of downtown. They are incentivized to rent to whomever will pay. So they will.
Chains are a threat to our little shops, boutiques, and eateries. To our murals and other art. Our fests. To what makes us, us. This is about a Subway next to Trigo, Barnes & Noble across from Bookish Boutique, Olive Garden by Ferrucci and Starbucks by The Press, McGuire’s round from House of Henry.
It means generic and forgettable over special and lovely. Is that the downtown you envision for us?
Once someone else has what you have, even just one other, you’ve given away your birthright and claim to identity. You are, by definition, less impressive.
I want a one-of-a-kind, never-seen-before, can’t-find-elsewhere downtown. That’s what I want to help build and long to spend my life in.
How about you?
Sydney has its opera house. New York the Empire State Building. We should be going for icons here, not bargain basement.
Let’s cut the chains now, and be free.
Kevin
Qwirkery 
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