The malls of yesteryear are not dead, but many are in need of a revival if they want to thrive tomorrow and beyond, believes Leslie Lundin, co-founder and managing partner at LBG Real Estate Cos. Lundin, who held the “Transforming Challenges into Opportunities” workshop on Monday at ICSC’s Western Dealmaking Conference at the Los Angeles Convention Center, asserts that many mall properties are situated in prime traffic corridors — meaning the traffic is there but it’s up to the owner to take advantage of these numbers. She points to the Shops at Hilltop, a 1.2-million-square-foot shopping center in the San Francisco East Bay submarket of Richmond, as one example. LBG acquired the asset, which is currently undergoing a rebranding and re-tenanting just off Interstate 80 in a dense traffic corridor that sits 20 miles northeast of San Francisco, in July 2017. It is set to become an Asian-themed shopping and entertainment destination that includes a movie theater, live theater, grocery store, food hall, and more than 100,000 square feet of restaurants along with various entertainment-related tenants. The Shops at Hilltop will also include off-price, valued-based tenants such as H&M, Forever 21 and Saks Off Fifth. Rich Walter, executive vice president …
