PREP, owner of the Hanover Mall, has proposed turning its existing indoor mall – which is considered “failing” with less than 50 percent occupancy – into a mixed-use, open-air lifestyle center with 297 high-end apartments. Since the days of big box stores serving as anchor tenants are largely over, PREP is pivoting to restaurants, bars, and other experiential retail to attract customers. First, they need Town Meeting approval of 13 liquor licenses to attract top-notch retail tenants to lease at the revitalized mall site.
Through a public records request, BG collected the names and addresses of all registered voters in the Town of Hanover who attended a Town Meeting during the last five years. Hanover has Open Town Meeting, which means any registered voter can attend, so BG identified all voters who attended at least three of the last five Town Meetings in order to create a universe of likely voters. BG crafted a letter in support of the project on behalf of PREP and sent it out to nearly 500 households throughout the town. BG also leveraged its group of project supporters assembled from our previous work on the campaign and asked them to assist in getting out the vote.
BG helped secure approval of the 13 additional liquor licenses by a nearly unanimous margin at Town Meeting, which allowed PREP’s leasing agents to move forward with attracting restaurants, bars, and experiential retailers to the revitalized property.
