The Placemaking Round-Up
A biweekly newsletter with public space news, resources, and opportunities.
The Biweekly Bazaar
A curated dispatch on all things public markets plus the latest announcements from the Market Cities Program.
A biweekly newsletter with public space news, resources, and opportunities.
A curated dispatch on all things public markets plus the latest announcements from the Market Cities Program.
SEATTLE-- When the ubiquitous coffee chain Starbucks saw its dominance of the global latte market declining last year, the Seattle-based firm launched a bold move that will go down in the annals of business innovation. Long aware that the active ingredient in its success was sociability more than caffeine, Starbucks announced in September that it would install a public plaza outside most of its 15,000 stores worldwide.
Industry insiders scoffed when company chairman Howard Schultz declared, “And when we say public squares, we mean public squares! You can bring in your own latte from Peet’s, Caribou or your local independent coffee shop. You also can gather signatures for petitions or wave protest signs.”
Yet public response was immediate—and overwhelming. Espresso, tea and scone revenues climbed 619 percent within the first week at Starbucks locations outfitted with the new plazas. And, curiously, sales at independently owned coffee shops also tripled in neighborhoods with Starbucks plazas.
The first plaza opened in a what has been a parking lot next door to a Starbucks in downtown Kokomo, Indiana, quickly followed by a store in a San Diego strip mall, where an adjacent tanning parlor was fashioned into an outdoor frappucino garden, and a store in the heart of Naples, which was outfitted with a rooftop piazza and a fountain.
One of the surprising financial benefits of the new policy came in the huge success of the Starbucks-owned record label Hear Music, which has signed more than 300 artists first discovered busking in the new plazas. Sixteen of the top 20 songs downloaded from iTunes and other online music sources during the first two months of the year were artists on the Hear music label, including the mega-hit “Java Java Jive” by Barney and the Baristas.
PPS senior vice-president Kathleen Madden explained the company’s success this way: “Public gathering spots are essential to the life of any community. Starbuck has just reminded us how true this is.”
Meanwhile, McDonalds announced plans yesterday to add public playgrounds and meditation gardens to more than 80 percent of all its stores—following the lead of Dairy Queen, Wendy’s, Quiznos, Jimmy John’s, and Popeyes Fried Chicken.
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