Buxton Company to lead city retail recruitment

The Buxton Company of Ft. Worth, Texas, was hired after a unanimous vote by the Birmingham Shopping District (BSD) board at its monthly meeting on Thursday, November 2, to handle tenant recruitment for the downtown retail district.

Julie Fielder, an independent leasing agent who was a former retail leasing agent with The Taubman Company, had worked with the BSD as a retail leasing consultant since March 2009 until October 31, after tendering her resignation.

The BSD sent out a request for proposal in October for qualified firms and individual consultants for retail consulting with expertise in recruiting national and local retailers to work with them to locate and establish a retail operation within commercial spaces in the downtown Birmingham shopping district. Interviews were conducted with six qualified consultants and/or companies, with Buxton impressing the BSD with knowledge, analytics and data.

Buxton Company, in business for over 20 years and with over 4,000 clients, is a pioneer in analytics, utilizing data resources, pushing new methodologies and technologies for its clients, their website states.

“They have a really good reputation, and have 40 representatives at their booth at ICSC (International Council of Shopping Centers),” said one board member. “That’s pretty impressive. We liked their organization and their data. It’s a really different path for us. You have to have good leads before you do anything else. They have a credible reputation in order to recruit to Birmingham, and they’ll refer tenants to Birmingham. We were looking to piggyback with someone with a strong reputation in the market.”

Buxton will be paid $50,000 per year, plus expenses, for a one-year contract, and receive no extra commissions for leasing, which was a sore point in the recent past for some building owners and other leasing agents. The Buxton contract will start immediately.