“City managers and municipal users are so impressed when I tell them we can give them near real-time data and insights about their residents, employees, and businesses. There’s no guessing with Placer, just data, empowering them in situations like unplanned construction, where they would otherwise have no idea of potential impact to their cities or ways to mitigate it.”
~ Kevin Crowder, Founder
The Challenge
The village of Tequesta, Florida lies north of the city of Jupiter, and is connected to the south via 2 bridges: Highway A1A, and Highway 1. FDOT recently notified the town that they would begin construction on Highway 1 before closing it for 19 months in 2023. With little external guidance on how the closure may impact local businesses, the village manager sought help from Kevin Crowder and his team of consultants at BusinessFlare.
They had 4 main questions:
1. How might the closure impact local businesses?
2. Can we pinpoint which businesses or jobs may be most at risk?
3. Are there insights or trends that can help our businesses adapt to or mitigate any impacts?
4. Does this closure create any new opportunities we should capitalize on? If so, what are they?
A strong customer of Placer, Kevin knew mobile location and people data could help answer these questions.
The Solution
To start, BusinessFlare evaluated the habits and movement of residents and employees within Tequesta by geofencing the city. The team also categorized the zip codes to the south of Tequesta based on their proximity to the city:
Primary: area of the to-be-closed bridge. Residents will not be able to access Tequesta, and visa versa, without taking a longer, circuitous, route.
Secondary: contains the remaining bridge (Highway A1A). It is anticipated that this bridge and the surrounding area will see increased traffic.
Tertiary: nearby zip codes that feed visitors and employees into Tequesta.
Placer data showed that 4 of the 5 main shopping centers in Tequesta pulled 20-30% of their visitors from impacted zip codes south of the river, a significant amount. Placer’s granular data then analyzed specific businesses within those centers to gauge the level of impact expected due to the closure, showing that businesses like Marshall’s, Beall’s, and others drew 20-30% of traffic from the south, requiring targeted efforts to reduce the risk of lost business or jobs.
Learn more about Visits by Origin
Placer’s foot traffic data also showed that certain categories of businesses south of the river, including bars and pubs, dining, and leisure, drew a large proportion of residents from Tequesta. The reduction in traffic south due to the bridge closure, then, presents an opportunity to boost these categories in Tequesta by reacquainting residents with those categories in town.
Learn more about Favorite Places
The Outcome
Armed with the data on which Tequesta businesses are at risk due to the bridge closure, and seeing an opportunity to boost local businesses in the bars / pubs, dining, and leisure categories, the BusinessFlare team is finalizing recommendations to the village manager on how to strengthen the at-risk businesses and how to bolster local venues by marketing to residents. Tequesta is evaluating these strategies as they prepare for the bridge closure.
