In our work at Streetsense, we often try to understand, on behalf of our clients, are their merchandising strategies “market-making” or “market-serving”? The answer often depends on ownership structure and context. In some markets, like Cleveland where we recently developed a downtown retail strategy, we’ve seen an interesting mix of both—East 4th Street is a great example of legacy market-making, while Euclid Avenue, with its fragmented ownership, is decidedly more market-serving in character.
So what do these terms mean?
A market-making place is, in many ways, built from scratch. It’s a place where something didn’t really exist before—no established customer base, no clear identity. Through deliberate investment, branding, and, critically, a degree of control over the offerings, a destination gets created. Market-making is about establishing a new center of gravity. It is proactive and catalytic, designed to draw new customers who might never have come otherwise. This is work that we often do on behalf of private developers and owners.
A market-serving place is different. These are districts that already serve people, and the strategy is about serving them better. Instead of trying to attract a brand-new audience, the focus is on understanding and meeting the needs of existing customers, often by filling gaps in the market. A grocery store, pharmacy, or childcare center in a neighborhood commercial district are all examples of market-serving tenants—businesses that succeed because they meet daily needs of people who are already there. This is work that we often do on behalf of cities or Business Improvement Districts.
Both approaches matter, but they work in different ways. Market-serving is often the first move: responsive, incremental, and rooted in the reality of who is already coming to the district. Market-making, on the other hand, requires vision, coordination, and a degree of control that is not always easy to achieve in downtown environments.
The places we often celebrate as retail success stories are usually products of market making. Dana Crawford in Denver’s Larimer Square bought and restored historic buildings to control tenancies and create a “there there.” In Cleveland, East 4th Street became a destination because ownership was concentrated along a 450-foot stretch, which allowed for careful curation. In Brooklyn, Two Trees Management strategically acquired and tenanted multiple properties in DUMBO to seed a neighborhood, while Acadia Realty clustered acquisitions in Williamsburg to coordinate tenancy and build a cohesive identity.
What these efforts share is control at scale, or at the very least, coordinated influence. This matters because retailers value certainty that their neighbors will attract—not repel—the same customers, and customers value the ability to visit multiple stores in a single trip. Market-making is also about building brand identity at the district level: making a splash, telling a story, and delivering on the promise of a curated destination.
Most downtowns and BIDs lean toward market-serving, but the districts that break through often do so because someone—typically a property owner or developer—has a vision and takes a risk. The real question is: are you serving the market you have, or are you making the market you want?
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