1 Executive Summary

This report provides a gap and void analysis for business opportunities in Downtown Morgantown compared to downtown businesses of college towns in the same region. The study was initiated at the request of Morgantown’s Economic Vitality Committee, which brings together representatives from the City of Morgantown, Main Street Morgantown, and the Morgantown Area Partnership. The committee also brings expertise from West Virginia University and the local business and non-profit communities to work on aspects of economic development in the city. These analyses address the continued need for public and private investment in Downtown. The college towns used as references for Morgantown are Charlottesville and Blacksburg, Virginia, and Asheville, North Carolina. These college towns are home to the University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and the University of North Carolina. Aside from its closeness to the heart of West Virginia University, Morgantown’s downtown district also serves as the city’s economic center. It is home to businesses, including retail stores, restaurants, professional offices, and financial institutions. These businesses generate employment opportunities, attract visitors, and contribute to the local economy in tax and revenue streams. The district often hosts community events, festivals, and concerts, which draw residents and visitors alike. Downtown also highlights the city’s history and heritage. It features a mix of historic buildings and landmarks, including, among others, the Metropolitan Theater, the Monongalia County Courthouse, and the Warner Theater. These landmark buildings preserve the architectural and cultural legacy of the area and its art galleries and museums, offering opportunities for artistic expression and cultural experiences. The downtown area also serves as a vital link to the university community. The presence of West Virginia University (WVU) brings a significant student population and academic resources to the downtown area, contributing to its vibrancy and fostering a unique blend of student life and city culture.

2 Methodology

This analysis uses ESRI’s gap and void analysis feature on the ArcGIS Business Analyst platform—a tool designed to help businesses and organizations understand the gaps or deficiencies in their market. It identifies areas or regions lacking specific services, amenities, or business establishments. The spatial and business data used on the platform is culled from Data Axle and has been updated to include 2023 data. 

The void analysis feature combines demographic data, consumer behavioral patterns, and spatial analysis techniques to identify areas with unmet demand for products or services. It helps businesses make informed decisions about market expansion, site selection for new business locations, or introducing new products or services, identifying gaps in market coverage. The terms “gap” and “void” are often used interchangeably in this context, but they have slightly different connotations.

• A void refers to an area with an actual absence or deficiency of a particular product or service, representing unmet demand. It represents a clear opportunity for businesses or service providers to meet demand by establishing a presence.

• A gap refers to an area where demand for a particular product or service exists but lacks supply or availability. It indicates an underserved market where potential customers seek a specific offering but cannot find it nearby. Businesses can target these gaps to capture market share and meet the unmet demand.

The process starts by defining the target market or the specific type of service or amenity being analyzed. After this initial step, a second area/market representing a reference point for the target market is also identified and defined. Then, using the available data, the void and gap analysis evaluates the existing market coverage and identifies areas with a significant gap or void compared to the reference areas.

We describe the boundaries of downtown Morgantown as thus: the north by Willey Street, which separates the downtown area from the campus of West Virginia University. The district is bound to the south by Sturgiss Street, which runs along Decker’s Creek, and to the west by University Avenue, which runs parallel to the Monongahela River. To the east, the district is bound by Spruce Street, which also runs along Decker’s Creek with bridges crossing over to the adjacent South Park Historic District. This area has 305 businesses.

Our reference areas are downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, Blacksburg, Virginia, and Asheville, North Carolina. These cities are University towns (University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and the University of North Carolina in Asheville) in the same region as West Virginia University. We defined the boundaries for downtown Charlottesville and downtown Asheville on the ArcGIS map, as described by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and cross-referenced these with Google Maps and these cities’ official sites.

Below, we summarize the gap and void analysis results in a set of tables. Where the reader observes the capital Greek $\Delta$, this stands for change or difference in a quantity. The Greek $\rho$ denotes quantities associated with the density of an area. In the tables that follow, rows in gold indicate business sectors for which there exists a void. The tables are ordered so gaps appear at the top and are denoted by negative values under the “Gap” column. Rows in gold indicate gaps that are also voids.

3 Demographic Comparisons

Table 1 below compares Morgantown demographically with Blacksburg, Charlottesville, and Asheville. The table suggests that, demographically, Blacksburg is the best comparison for Morgantown. But, several features of the demographic data are notable in understanding prospective investment in downtown Morgantown. First, geography is a limiting factor. Area-wise, Morgantown is less than half to one third the size of the other cities. This is a very real physical limit in terms of both attracting and maintaining businesses as well as expanding the infrastructure footprint of the downtown area. This puts a premium on areas and structures that are available for redevelopment, both in downtown and adjacent neighborhoods that may provide downtown traffic. Of course, two of these projects—Richwood redevelopment and the Warner Theater have been prominent in discussions in the past year.

The second feature is population change. While the other cities grew in population slightly, Morgantown has lost a bit over one percent of its population over the past year (we caution that these are estimates). This demographic feature of the city's changing social dynamics puts a premium on attracting visitors and patrons who may not live in or near the downtown area in the short term and envisioning strategies to grow the population in the long term. Trends in population decline in cities will be a more pressing problem as the century progresses, regionally and nationally (Sutradhar, Spearing, and Derrible 2024). Median age sets Morgantown and Blacksburg as more comparable than either are to the other cities. Of course, age in downtown has always been a headline issue with the proximity of WVU. This median age in downtown creates a tension between catering to this demographic or attracting populations from surrounding neighborhoods.

Table 2 displays the business figures for Downtown Morgantown compared to the other cities. Despite its small geographic footprint, Morgantown contains more businesses than Blacksburg with slightly more sales revenue. The numbers for the ratio of employees to residents are informative in being much lower than Blacksburg. Charlottesville is the lowest, signifying more residents than employees in the downtown area. The types of businesses to be attracted or retained likely vary significantly with whether patrons are expected to be employees working downtown or residents living there. Again, these serve as baselines for discussions around economic development strategies that may vary in the degree to which they reinforce demographic features or alter them.

Geospatial analysis sheds some light on the underlying features of the downtown and surrounding areas. Below, we present three maps—population, median age, and per capita income. These speak to the geographic challenges and opportunities for economic development and downtown investment. We encourage the reader to keep each of these in mind as they reason through the types of businesses the City hopes to attract and incentivize and the types of patrons expected for these businesses. Successful investment strategies should consider the tapestry of these features on the supply end for businesses and the demand side for consumers. These features stand apart from various exercises in visioning the future of the downtown, but this visioning should be informed by them, if only as a starting point.

Figure 1 displays the U.S. Census Bureau’s population estimates for Morgantown by block group.¹ The population map shows that the more populated segments in Morgantown are outlying from the downtown area. Economic development and business incentives must either restructure these demographic features, which we think unlikely, or concentrate on attracting the neighborhoods to the city center. The reader should note that these higher population segments of town are not demographic monoliths. The area around the South Park neighborhood or Greenmont differs greatly in terms of age and income from that of the Suncrest neighborhood, nearby Sabraton, or the northwest areas of the Morgantown area.

Figure 2 displays the estimated median age by Census block group for Morgantown. Generally, the areas in and around the Downtown are comprised of younger residents. While numerous, they tend not to have disposable income that would allow spending on goods and services typical of downtown areas. Given current discussions around downtown development and business incentives, the target areas containing age groups able to contribute to a more economically vibrant downtown are to the south and east in neighborhoods like First Ward, Greenmont, and Woodburn. South Park, with perhaps the most disposable income is demographically older compared to these other surrounding neighborhoods.

Figure 3 displays the per capita income in thousands for Census block groups in Morgantown. This final map brings us to an important point. As of 2022, the downtown remains younger and of lower means than many of the surrounding areas. The highest per capita income nearest to downtown is the South Park area. But we would also draw attention to Woodburn, First Ward, and beyond as areas where residents likely have income to spend downtown. In all of these maps, it is notable that Sabraton contains populations in the age range and with income to support downtown businesses. Given these maps, development strategies that bring in residents and non-residents downtown will likely have a greater impact than resisting such demographic features. Morgantown has evolved into a city defined by its neighborhoods. Increasing their connectivity to one another and to downtown will bring the greatest impacts.

4 Comparative Opportunity

In this section, we present the gap and void analysis results in tables based on the city serving as the basis for comparison. We proceed in this manner for ease of presentation, but we urge the reader to analyze and compare across tables for voids and gaps. While any one city can only be so informative, voids and gaps appearing across all comparisons, seem to us to present a strong case for a concerted effort among the City, the Partnership, and Main Street Morgantown. The reader will also note that, in the case of voids, there may be good, well-founded local reasons why this is the case. Culture and context matter. The local business community, residents, and their elected officials no doubt have a vision of what they would like downtown to be in the future. So, these tables don’t contain certainties so much as suggestions about likely sectors to target.

The tables are organized by market gaps and sectors. The sectors with the greatest gaps appear at the top and descend by the size of the estimated gap. Table rows in gold signify areas where specific goods or services are voids. These do not necessarily mean there are no businesses within these sectors in town, but these may by areas of excess demand unlikely to be met by the current suite of businesses. The lower portion of the tables, ordered by gap, are sectors for which Morgantown is on par with the other cities or has an excess of businesses within a certain sector compared to other cities. Estimated excesses do not imply that the committee should not incentivize businesses like these. Again, local context matters. A new bar on North High Street will likely meet with success, regardless of whether there is an excess of bars in the area. Finally, tables for Charlottesville and Asheville are considerably longer, owing to their greater size and diversity. For each table, we identify areas that seem to us to be promising for discussion and leave the reader and our local leaders to digest the others.

5 Discussion and Findings

We discuss some specifics for each comparison in the tables and sections above. Much of the findings available in the analysis we leave to the expert reader and our community leaders. We do think there are some general considerations that should inform discussions about economic vitality in the downtown with a few clear takeaways. These are general conclusions based on our analysis. We offer some additional insights on specific categories in Section 5.1 below.

• Retail food and clothing is a common thread across city comparisons.

• Restaurants are a notable sector but they require both an understanding of how these might differ from current establishments and whether they serve different patrons, demographically, than existing establishments.

• Arts, culture, entertainment, and recreation/physical activity are promising sectors for further development in the downtown area. Collectively, these fit under a broader umbrella of tourism and attracting visitors both from local neighborhoods and other states and regions.

• There should be more attention and discussion on the differences between businesses that will directly attract visitors near and far and those that will fit within daily routines and spur indirect spending downtown (e.g., healthcare goods and services or grocers).

• National demographic trends in which the majority of cities in the West will lose population in the coming decades will profoundly shape the nature of these development strategies. Likely, this means pushing them to be more visitor/tourist oriented.

• The current demographics of Morgantown make growing the downtown challenging but offer clear distinctions among strategies. While these tensions have bubbled below the surface for some time, we think explicating them here brings the clarity of data to the discussion. In addition, most thinking has gone into the supply-side of the economic development equation. Much more work is necessary on the demand-side if economic development is to attract visitors to Morgantown as suggested by the analyses above. In much broader role for social science here is certainly warranted.

• We think it unlikely that Morgantown will meets its economic development goals without incorporating a mix of investment among national and local players. This puts a premium on elected officials and business leaders to navigate this ongoing tension between differing development visions for the downtown.

• To marry some of the interpretations above, especially regarding malls, a modern shopping mall must cater to diverse consumer preferences. We think it more useful to think about clusters of shopping rather than a traditional mall and on a smaller scale.

• The data above has shown a void for a medical center and an optometrist. In addition, voids also appear in larger Monongalia County for medical centers and optometrists compared to Albemarle County, Virginia. These gaps may provide fodder for collaborative efforts with the Monongalia Health System and the West Virginia University Health System.

6 Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs Partnerships

The Rockefeller Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs (IPRPA) in Eberly College at WVU is a non-partisan source of research, data, and analysis for state and local officials in West Virginia and the broader Appalachian region. IPRPA conducts basic and applied research on various problems important to the region and related to public policy and broader social, political, and economic transitions.

We employ the full range of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to societal problems to help public, non-profit, and private sector partners plan, strategize, and adapt to changes and challenges in the region, be they physical or biological, economic, governmental, or societal. We have extensive expertise in developing and maintaining large-scale data infrastructures to answer fundamental questions about public policy and its effects on communities. Our partnerships span the public, nonprofit, and private sectors and develop research co-designed with our stakeholders, clients, and communities, improving the use of research and data-driven decision-making in tackling important policy problems. The Institute aims to spur evidence-based policymaking and uptake of research in the state and region.

Please contact the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs (IPRPA) for questions and technical assistance in pursuing any recommendations outlined here.

7 Acknowledgements and Disclaimers

This report is issued at the request of the Main Street Morgantown, the City of Morgantown, and the Morgantown Area Partnership. Eberly College provided support for the study. Errors in content, style, or judgment in the report remain with the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs (IPRPA) at West Virginia University.