Assess the atmospherics of Moore Avenue in downtown Terrell, TX.

• Presentation dress rehearsal and written report due 1 DEC (75 points)
• Formal presentation with hard copy hand-out on 8 DEC (75 points)

General Issue:

The report is to be an atmospherics assessment for downtown Terrell, TX.  Downtown Terrell is located on Moore Avenue, US-80.  Our client has identified the area of specific interest for this project as bounded by Rockwall St. on the west, Virginia St. on the east, the rail tracks on the south, and High St. on the north.  A location map is here; more links that you MUST use are at the end of this document.  You are not being asked to visit Terrell, but are being asked to use the images that are linked below.

Specific to this area, our client is interested in how to get people to stop and shop downtown when passing through Terrell.  On US-80 at the crossing of TX-34, downtown Terrell is a high traffic area.  Terrell is on the way to many places, including Dallas, but the concern is that people pass through without stopping for entertainment, dining, and retail shopping.  On Canton First Monday weekends, hotels in Terrell are full but downtown shops and restaurants are not getting the amount of business that is expected.

Downtown retail businesses would like consumer revenues to be as high as possible.  In considering the "look and feel" of Moore Avenue, our objective is to create an atmosphere that:

• encourages people to enter Moore Avenue as they approach from either end
• encourages people to explore the features of Moore Avenue
• encourages people to stay longer
• encourages purchases while on Moore Avenue (frequency and volume)
• encourages repeat business from satisfied customers
• encourages word of mouth promotion from satisfied customers

Your report MUST be structured as follows:

1. Introduction and Problem Statement / Objective

2. Situation Analysis
   • Consumer Segments (who goes?)
     • task definition (why are they there?)
     • antecedent states (why, when are they there?)
     • time (when, how long are they there?)
     • social surroundings (who with, who is around?)

   • Physical Surroundings (organized by spatial and non-spatial elements)
     • perception: exposure
     • perception: attention
       • voluntary attention
       • selective attention
       • involuntary attention
     • perception: comprehension

3. Conclusions (what is)

4. Recommendations (what should be)

If you are present in class when this assignment is distributed and discussed, you may work in a team of as many as four people.  The team is of your own choosing.  Note, however, that all members of a team will receive the same score.  If you were not present at the time when this assignment was distributed and discussed, you will not be permitted to work in a team and must work on your own. 

Neatness is considered a minimal requirement in your grade.  Neatness is defined here to include grammar, spelling, typos, correct use of paragraphs, and such.  Problems with these would not be acceptable in a "real world" consulting report and are therefore not acceptable in this assignment.

Please do not use any kind of report folders - they will be discarded if you do.  Just use plain white paper with a single staple in the top left corner.

You are encouraged to visit the professor outside of class to discuss your ideas. 

LINKS:

• client-supplied documents
  • downtown aerial image (272K)
    (compare with google satellite image [97K] for street names)
  • trade area traffic counts (527K)
  • Terrell traffic count map (484K)

• Google Maps
  • Google street map
    • Use zoom to go down to street level.
    • Add satellite view to see buildings, keep or remove street names.
    • Use picture view to do virtual drive through at street level.  Pan, tilt, and zoom to see building sides and fronts.  Note that pictures are a few years old; more buildings are now occupied and some buildings have changed tenants.
  • virtual drive through of downtown Terrell assembled from Google Maps pictures. (8.8 meg -- huge download size)

• Business Inventory
  I used whitepages.com and some other reverse lookup services to compile a rough business inventory on Moore St.  Below is a spreadsheet with addresses and business names that include the Moore St. section that we were assigned and a few addresses beyond that area.  The spreadsheet includes links to photographs of some of these buildings and businesses.
  • Moore St. address spreadsheet