R2023-148 and Eexecuted SS Grant Contracts (2)

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Overall, this str-rdy looks at a very conservative capture scenario for' leaking r.etail sales in several ways: ' Qnly counting existing leakage in both trade areas and presuming no population growth in the primary lrade arca (which wili continue to grow); " Only counting local ard regional population - not visitors (who comprise over 15Zo of the customer base); " Using a20o/o captLrre rate used, leaving 80o% of market leakage to continue to leak elsewhere; " Using a very conservative $200 per square fool estimaied sales across all retail categories. The supportable square footage rurder this scenario is 95,000 square feet of total retail in the overall trade area. Suburban developers are likety to use more aggressive numbers, leaving anyone looking at clowntown to focus on roughly a third of this number, Even still, this could support significant expansion of the downtown's retail footprint by simply "freezing the demand" in current time. 2.3.5 Key Housing Murket Opportunities Unlike retail market analysis, housing markets are much less precise to unclerstand. Using the projections for the primary trade area for population and household $owth it can be assumed that the Ellensburg market will add 120 additional housing units per year in Ellensburg or 600 by 2024. Builcling permit data reported through the City of Ellensburg corroborat.. thi. number with the average of 55 new units (conservative estimate) coming onlini each year. National trends in housing indicate increasing interest in downtown living both with millennials and empty nesters. With Ellensburg's young average age of 30 and large proportion of college students, there is a potential market for altemative kinds of housing such as lofts, condos ancl apartments. A simply allocation model that captures only 50% of the demand for future housing in the market would yield 150 new units that do not conform to the traditional single-famil! house. This estimate for additional downtown housing is a bit more aggressive than the retail assessment but the national trends point toward growth in this area and new product coming on line conoborates these national trends. More detail as to the location of this housing is shown in the plans below but they will generally cluster in upper floor units in the core of downtown and in new mixed-use development between downtown and Central Washington University. 2.3.6 Hotel Murket Opportunities Ellensburg is home to ten hotel properties with a total of 682 hotel rooms. The occupancy rate across all of these properties is 58%, which is slightly lower than the national standard of 62%.It is important to note, however, that this occupancy rate accounts for some ageing properties within the city limits of Ellensburg and that new properties experience higher or.upuo.y. The same is true for the averago daily room rate in Ellensburg, which stands at $87 per night and is lower than the national average daily room rate at $104 per night. Again, ageing properties can account for ihis figure. More importantly, Ellensburg has experienced an inciease in average daily rates, revenue per available room, and occupancy rates. The Kittitas County Tourism 19