Franklin County retailers hiring, yet sales taxes from stores fell in 2013

Retail limping back View Larger The Bottom Line Other Business Features Local Stories from ThisWeek More Articles By Mark Williams The Columbus Dispatch Saturday July 12, 2014 5:42 AM

The state of retail in Franklin County is a mixed picture these days.

Retailers are adding jobs again, and retail real-estate vacancy rates are down. Still, county sales-tax collections tied to retail fell in 2013 and, despite the sliding vacancy rates, there are no signs of new retail construction, according to a report released yesterday.

Things will never get back to where it was in the early 2000s, when you had retail peak the way it did, said Jung Kim, director of research for the Columbus Chamber. The nature of the business has changed so much."

The annual report (PDF), produced by the chamber and the Franklin County commissioners, is meant to provide local political and business leaders with a snapshot of an industry that is a key source of revenue for the county. It was released in conjunction with an annual retail summit held yesterday morning Downtown.

We live and die by retail. As counties go, retail is our bread and butter, County Commissioner Marilyn Brown said. We need the retail economy for our general fund.

Retailers added 533 jobs in 2012 and 1,159 last year, reversing a trend of falling retail employment dating to 2001. Retail jobs are back to their highest levels since the recession, according to the report. But the 68,349 retail workers in the county last year remain well below the 93,402 the county had in 2001.

Even though retail employment has stabilized, Kim said the growth in e-commerce continues to shift employment away from stores to logistics jobs such as trucking and warehousing.

The vacancy rate for retail space in central Ohio has been falling since 2009, but retailers are absorbing existing space rather than building new stores, according to the report.

We built up retail space over several decades, Kim said. Even after tearing down City Center, there are still vacancies around High Street. The nature of retail is changing from being oriented toward needing space to making it more about the use of space.

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Franklin County retailers hiring, yet sales taxes from stores fell in 2013