Features

By Taylor Williams Everybody loves a good underdog success story, but sometimes the Goliaths of the world just have too much going for them to get beat by the Davids.  All retail owners worth their salt recognize the unique draws that boutique, original concepts bring to their shopping centers. But landlords’ fiduciary responsibilities often dictate that they bring in heavier proportions of national credit tenants that can afford top-dollar rents — all other factors being held equal. And in a market defined by (relatively) high costs of capital, low vacancy, healthy demand for space and rising operating expenses, established brands have the edge.  “The market definitely favors national credit tenants that are well-financed and have hundreds if not thousands of locations,” says Will Majors, senior vice president in CBRE’s Austin market. “At minimum, it favors franchised locations with national corporate offices that support the franchisees.” According to data from CBRE, the direct availability rate for retail space in Dallas (not the metroplex as a whole) stood at 4.8 percent at the end of the first quarter, essentially unchanged from a year ago. In Austin, the availability rate currently clocks in at 3.4 percent, just 10 basis points higher on a …

— By Anthony Sanchez, design director and principal, Nadel Architecture + Planning — Consumers are heading back to the shopping mall, which is great news for retail owners, operators and tenants that rely on in-person sales and experiences as part of their respective business models. According to Placer.ai, February and March of this year saw a steady rise in foot traffic at malls nationally. Indoor malls sit just 5 percent below their pre-pandemic foot traffic levels, while open-air shopping malls surpassed 2019 levels for the first time since the pandemic.  The trend marks an incredible resiliency for the retail space, especially as financing and inflationary issues loom over the economy. But with all these shoppers coming back to the mall, the question is: will they recognize it? Anchors Entering a New Era With news of some larger retailers like Macy’s and the Dollar Store closing locations en masse, developers are chomping at the bit to reimagine those spaces. There is exciting potential to recreate them within malls in ways that enhance the overall shopping experience for consumers and attract new foot traffic – all to the benefit of the existing retailers at the shopping center. The result might be a …

If the whole mall redevelopment thing doesn’t work out, you can always become a marriage counselor. Perhaps some additional training and education would be needed for such a career transition to actually take place. But mall and shopping center owners who undertake high-risk redevelopments undoubtedly have firsthand appreciation of the importance of providing clear and courteous communication to the many different groups they deal with, from municipal leaders to longstanding tenants to onsite contract workers. That’s not to say that poor communication will necessarily kill a mall redevelopment. The inability to secure zoning overlay districts, civic partnerships for infrastructural improvements or feasibly priced construction loans in 2024 — these are variables over which mall owners have limited control and can actually sink these projects in their infancy. And those factors only come into play once the development team has done its due diligence and determined what uses and levels of density the project will feature.  “After you’ve considered the macro-level needs of the market and the asset itself, you enter a phase that we call ‘the minefield map,’” says Steve Plenge, CEO of Pacific Retail Capital Partners. “Reciprocal easement agreements [that regulate design or tenancy issues] by parties with ownership …