It’s an all too common scenario around town; signs in the retail and commercial centers accent the large number of vacant spaces for lease.

To be precise, the town’s vacancy rate for retail and commercial properties is about 34 percent, according to Town Economic Development Director Scott Cooper.

He updated numbers April 27 at the Public Policy Committee of the Chamber of Commerce and unveiled a plan to market the spaces and expand tax revenues.

Retail and commercial vacancies total about 293,000 square feet, divided between 187,000 square feet of retail space and another 106,000 square feet designated for commercial office units.

“We want to narrow that ratio,” explained Cooper. “When you’re over 30 percent, it doesn’t matter. It’s high.”

The local vacancy rate is similar to Carefree and Cave Creek’s numbers, said Cooper.

In the next fiscal year, the town plans a retail/commercial recruitment campaign, said Cooper. Subject to council approval, possibly tomorrow, a national consulting team of commercial executive Realtors would be retained to market the town and find businesses interested in expanding. The team would reach out to 9,000 contacts throughout the country and target decision-makers of specific businesses. Among the businesses that the town is interested in recruiting are apparel, sporting goods, home furnishings, casual dining and local companies of the Sam Fox-concept.

“There’s opportunities for Perk coffee shops… things like that are small and have low impact initially but for people who live here, it adds up rather fast and improves the quality of life,” said Cooper.

The goal would be to fill the empty spaces and reduce more than $100 million leakage in consumer spending to businesses outside the town. Added revenue also would be tremendous, said Cooper. Every million dollars in sales equates to $26,000 to the town coffers.

Cooper said he often is asked why the town can’t attract a Trader’s Joe market.

“Our demographics simply don’t meet their requirements,” said Cooper. The usual guideline is 50,000 people within a five-mile trade area. Traditionally, his recruiting data is based at its most advantageous location, Fry’s Marketplace off Shea Boulevard, taking in residential neighborhoods as far away as Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard to encompass a larger population.

“We’re about at 43,000 (population), which is low borderline.”

Adding 400 Park Place downtown units, new Adero Canyon construction and longer-term housing on the former state land site would bring the population closer to the requirement.

“We’re not far from that number and in no time at all, we’ll be there,” said Cooper.

The three-year recruitment campaign would be reviewed annually.

Commenting on the work force, about 8,000 residents leave town to work in neighboring communities. Three thousand from outlying communities come into town to work while only 1,200 live and work in Fountain Hills.

Narrowing the exodus of employees is a town objective by having more people living and working here because “those are all dollars spent in town,” said Cooper.