TULSA – Owasso-based economic development consultant Retail Attractions has added six client cities in three states.

That addition of Coffeyville, Caney, Independence and Cherryvale in Kansas, plus the Texas town of Heath and Mandan in North Dakota, gives Retail Attractions founder Rickey Hayes a portfolio of 26 cities in five states.

Hayes said that buildup improves his information base and broadens the potential expansion opportunities he may offer retail and restaurant representatives. That, in turn, strengthens his access and clout with retail and restaurant representatives.

The goal is to build a city’s economic tax base. While he has a particularly strong background in retail growth that results in sales tax growth, perhaps best demonstrated by the double-digit expansions seen in Owasso and Glenpool over the past six years, Hayes also stresses pro-business policy development and investments in fundamental services.

“Cities are finally realizing that they’re really in a competition for their very lives,” said Hayes in a telephone conversation from McAllen, Texas. “There’s just so much revenue out there and if your city’s not doing what it can to market itself to its very potential, they’re going to have problems.”

Hayes demonstrated his capabilities while economic development director for the city of Owasso. Through a data-based marketing plan developed with Crossroads Communications that illustrated the northern Tulsa suburb’s unmet retail demand, Owasso’s 30,000 residents enjoyed an influx of 4-million-plus square feet of new retail space in less than a decade.

Since founding Retail Attractions three years ago, his client cities added 3 million square feet of retail space, defying the retail deep-freeze that fronted the 2008 recession.

“Now that’s an aggregate amount of stuff that we’ve seen since 2007,” Hayes said. “A couple of those were big-box deals that came in that time, when we really worked on the deals back in 2004, 2005. Some of those seeds were planted many years ago.”

But several continued to develop even after the October 2008 financial meltdown curtailed most new construction. Hayes pointed then to his ties with several strong developers, such as Jim Tapp of Tapp Development in Edmond, one force behind Glenpool’s retail emergence over the last four years.

“We’ve worked with them in four or five cities,” said Hayes.

Hayes pins some of his success on his understanding of what site selectors, developers and retail brokers want and need. The company services range from client demographics and market packages to incentives proposals, development process analysis, and grant research and writing, with frequent personal visits not just to clients, but also with retailers.

With clients now stretching from North Dakota to the southern tip of Texas, Hayes foresees growth in his six-employee, two-contractor company.

“Any city, I believe, has retail potential,” he said. “It’s just knowing the reality of that potential. A small city like Collinsville’s not going to get a Best Buy, but Collinsville’s just opened up a QuikTrip that’s going to provide them solid sales tax dollars. And they’ve done even more in that new sewer line they’ve opened up, which is a real pro development investment. That’s our message. That’s what we’re trying to get cities to see. Collinsville’s a good example of that.”

With more signs of national retailers emerging from the recession’s lingering freeze, Hayes anticipates still more opportunities.

“I think there’s cities that are poised very well, when the economy comes right back,” he said. “The retailers now are moving in the micropolitan markets like Muskogee and Enid and Lawton. All those cities have a great deal of retail going on.

“I tell you one of the cities that’s really starting to find its niche is Broken Arrow,” he added, noting a past client. “I commend them for passing the bonds on their infrastructure. A lot of the things they’re seeing are a direct result of the City Council and the city manager really being retail-friendly and it’s paying off for them.”