Vitamin Shoppe testing inside LA Fitness 1
By: Jeff Dervech - February 12, 2020 Vitamin Shoppe testing inside LA Fitness

The Vitamin Shoppe opened 300-square-foot shops inside 9 LA Fitness health clubs. These in-gym shops serve up sports-nutrition products and on-the-go healthy snacks and beverages, as well as vitamins, minerals and supplements. The Vitamin Shoppe pays rent on the shops and employs its own salespeople. The companies are monitoring the format through March to determine whether to open more. One location is in Union, N.J., and two are on Long Island, in Farmingville and Huntington...

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Abercrombie & Fitch Says It’s Willing to Walk Away from Any Mall 2
By: Jeff Dervech - February 10, 2020 Abercrombie & Fitch Says It’s Willing to Walk Away from Any Mall

Retailers continue to shrink their footprint to right size their stores as they position themselves for the future. Omnichannel is a must and retailers must look for ways to condense and maximize their brick and mortar footprint all the while creating and growing an online base. Customers want both the ability to purchase in store as well as the ability to buy online. This move by Abercrombie is one that you are seeing by majority...

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Looks like more Properties will Trade in 2020 3
By: Jeff Dervech - January 29, 2020 Looks like more Properties will Trade in 2020

Former Toys R Us real estate update! New York based firm, Raider Hill, was tasked back in mid-2018 as the exclusive real estate advisor to the Toys R Us bankruptcy estate. The company was assigned the leasing, redevelopment and disposition of approx. 320 vacant big boxes across 46 states. In less than 2 years, Raider Hill’s portfolio of former Toy R Us stores available for sale or lease had dwindled from 320 stores (15.5 million...

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ICSC kicks off 2020 Congressional Fly-Out Program 4
By: Jeff Dervech - January 27, 2020 ICSC kicks off 2020 Congressional Fly-Out Program

From issues which include fixing the Qualified Improvement Property (QIP) glitch, opposing legislation that would tax carried interest as ordinary income, restoring Section 118 income tax exemptions, changes to beneficial ownership reporting requirements and ADA lawsuit reform. ICSC members from around the country travel to visit with Members of Congress in their home states to create interactions outside of DC, build long term relationships in a more personal setting and highlight the breadth and scope...

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Regional Coffee Chains are Growing 5
By: Jeff Dervech - January 12, 2020 Regional Coffee Chains are Growing

Coffee chains continue to grow and work to obtain market share from the already well-known mammoths! The coffee industry overall has evolved over the last 50 years. For decades, Americans obtain their daily dose of coffee from a local diner or café then to have evolved over the years to more corporate known options such as Starbucks, Dunkin and Tim Hortons. Now, more and more regional players are creating a craft product and a custom...

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Retailers Adopt New Strategies to Combat Organized Theft 6
By: Jeff Dervech - January 11, 2020 Retailers Adopt New Strategies to Combat Organized Theft

Shrinkage, the term used mainly to describe the theft of stolen goods, is now being addressed more efficiently by the use of technology. According to the National Retail Federation, retail shrinkage accounted for approx. $50.6 billion in 2018. This encompassed shoplifting, returns fraud, employee theft and similar losses with theft by employees accounting for the bulk of this amount. Retailers are now adopting video analytics and technology to count shoppers and track their behaviors. The...

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More Supermarkets Open Delivery-Only Stores 7
By: Jeff Dervech - January 10, 2020 More Supermarkets Open Delivery-Only Stores

The only constant is change! The grocery industry continues to evolve and has embarked on a new trend. Supermarket retailers are beginning to open “dark stores”. A dark store resembles a traditional store but is closed to customers and used only to process online orders. Brick and mortar locations essentially work to serve as micro fulfillment centers. As consumers move more towards online ordering, expect retailers to evolve to meet changing demands on how people...

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Anchor Come, Anchor Go 8
By: Jeff Dervech - January 9, 2020 Anchor Come, Anchor Go

As opportunities for former big box and department store anchor spaces become available, developers and retail landlords are getting creative on how to reutilize the real estate. Commonly retail landlords are splitting the former big box unit, where viable, demising the space to accommodate multiple retail uses with smaller floor plan layouts. One developer in Neptune Beach, FL is creating a mixed-use complex out of a former Kmart location which will include ground floor retail...

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Chipotle to open 150-plus restaurants in 2020 9
By: Jeff Dervech - January 8, 2020 Chipotle to open 150-plus restaurants in 2020

Chiptole is growing! The brand will open between 150 to 165 new units in 2020. The company has announced that more than half will incorporate drive through lanes as they’ve changed their real estate strategy and look to add this convenience option for customers. Generally speaking, restaurants that add a drive through lane increase overall sales on average 20-30%. Chiptole has a large cult like customer following, offers a great product and is a strong...

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Domino's Pizza Is Playing the Long Game 10
By: Jeff Dervech - January 7, 2020 Domino’s Pizza Is Playing the Long Game

Did you know that Domino’s carryout service is 45% of their total US orders? Dominos is incentivizing its customers to use carryout service as it is more profitable then delivery mainly due to high costs and competition from third party delivery apps. Domino’s is expanding its store footprint to get closer to customers, which is designed to shrink delivery times and save costs. The belief is that as 3rd party delivery apps continue to shrink...

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Retail Centers Drive Fitness Growth 11
By: Jeff Dervech - January 6, 2020 Retail Centers Drive Fitness Growth

It’s a symbiotic relationship! Fitness concepts are healthy for shopping centers and shopping centers benefit from fitness users as tenants. The old stigma that fitness tenants absorb too much parking and the fact that many major anchors excluded their use in reciprocal easement agreements has changed over time and is not longer the norm. In many instances, shopping centers benefit by way of having a fitness concept at their centers as these uses drive traffic...

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Physical Retail Expected to Fuel Strong Holiday Spending 12
By: Jeff Dervech - December 20, 2019 Physical Retail Expected to Fuel Strong Holiday Spending

The holidays and retail go hand in hand! The retail industry is very much alive and well and as we enter this holiday season expect consumers to continue to spend discretionary income at very strong levels. The average consumer is expected to spend approx. $683 on holiday related items, an increase of 4.9% over last year according to ICSC. Brick and Mortar remains crucial to the success of the holiday shopping season, with approx. 90%...

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Optical Chains Eye Expansion 13
By: Jeff Dervech - December 19, 2019 Optical Chains Eye Expansion

Optical Stores are great shopping center tenants! The expansion of vision offerings is growing in demand for both functional and fashionable eyewear. Eyewear is essential across all demographics and is available at all price points from value based to high end. The sector continues to benefit from America’s growing older population which continues to fuel demand for health care services across the board. Optical Stores offer different options and sell a variety of products ranging...

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Solar Panels: The Latest Competition between Walmart vs. Target 14
By: Jeff Dervech - December 18, 2019 Solar Panels: The Latest Competition between Walmart vs. Target

Target and Walmart are racing to make a push in an effort to implement solar panels into their store portfolios. Target has roughly 1,855 stores and is aiming to have approx. 25% of their units powered by renewable energy by the end of 2020. Walmart has committed to using 100% renewable energy and plans to have 50% of the stores within their portfolio completed by 2025. This an admirable commitment and one of which will...

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Dollar General encouraged by DG Fresh rollout 15
By: Jeff Dervech - December 17, 2019 Dollar General encouraged by DG Fresh rollout

Dollar General is a great retail tenant for shopping center owners! This retail brand continues to innovate and stay ahead of the curve. With over 15,800 stores across the US, DG is implementing further plans to dive deeper into the grocery business with its DG Fresh initiative. The scope of this initiative is to add additional grocery products in order to close the gap between dry goods and fresh product offerings in store. The company...

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Walmart tests dentistry and mental care as it moves deeper into primary health 16
By: Jeff Dervech - December 12, 2019 Walmart tests dentistry and mental care as it moves deeper into primary health

Walmart to move into health care! The Bentonville, Ark based retailer has made an announcement that it will open its 1st Walmart Health clinic this month within a store in Dallas, GA. This clinic facility will provide customers with low priced health services to include dental, audiology, x-ray examinations and mental health counseling. If successful, this pilot program will be expanded further and will be implemented to other units across its chain. The clinic is...

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Target's Stores Are Getting Smaller, And Its Revenue Is Getting Bigger 17
By: Jeff Dervech - September 19, 2019 Target’s Stores Are Getting Smaller, And Its Revenue Is Getting Bigger

Target is one of the darlings of retail brands in today’s day in age. In 2017, Target initiated a $7B reinvestment program to renovate existing stores and to open smaller format stores. The company has opened its 100th small-format store and has remodeled its 500th existing store unit since 2017. The goal is for Target to update approx. 1,000 of 1,800 existing store base by the end of 2020. Target’s strategy is paying off well...

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Walgreens Closing 200 Stores 18
By: Jeff Dervech - September 4, 2019 Walgreens Closing 200 Stores

Walgreens announced that they will close approx. 200 stores within the drugstore chain. This is a minimal amount, approx. 2%, given that this retailer has over 9,500 US locations. The move comes as expected when they cautioned in June that they would be looking to close unprofitable stores as they evaluate the approx. 500 leases that come due each year. Drugstore real estate is typically really good dirt, traditionally located at highly trafficked signalized intersections...

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universal
By: Jeff Dervech - August 8, 2019 Orlando – Retailers look beyond Tourism find a Soaring Population and Job Growth

Orlando is not only an interesting city but also a very strong market for retail. This region is one of the top markets in the country for both population and job growth. With Downtown Orlando emerging as an 18-hour city, more and more retailers are being drawn to the urban core. The residential population of Orlando is approx. 18,000 with approx. 80,000 daytime workers. This growth in residential population has postured downtown to be a...

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washington mall
By: Jeff Dervech - August 6, 2019 Updates from Washington D.C.

U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced, this week that it would review and expand government scrutiny of certain dominant tech companies. By this review, opens a broad antitrust investigation into whether market-leading online platforms have engaged in behavior that has reduced competition, stifled innovation or otherwise harmed consumers. Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc., Apple Inc., and Google are reportedly the targets of this latest review. The main initiative by the DOJ and FTC (Federal Trade Commission)...

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ups delivery
By: Jeff Dervech - August 1, 2019 Retailers adding UPS pickup spots to thousands of Stores

UPS, the American multinational package delivery and supply chain management company, aims to provide services within 5 miles of roughly 90% of its US consumer base. To work in accomplishing this goal, UPS will add thousands of package pickup and drop off facilities to CVS and Michaels stores across the US. The collaboration with CVS alone will add more than 6,000 UPS access point locations. The goal of this move by UPS is to make...

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gamers
By: Jeff Dervech - July 29, 2019 Simon to open mall-based e-sports venues

Mall landlord Simon has entered an agreement to team up with Allied Esports, an e-sports operator, to open venues in shopping centers around the country. Allied Esports is a sister company of the World Poker Tour. This move will allow connecting video-game players, streamers and fans through integrated arenas and mobile e-sports trucks worldwide. As part of this move, Simon and Allied Esports will create dedicated e-sports venues and experience sites at select domestic Simon...

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Dollar General shifts Strategy to draw Wealthier Customers 19
By: Jeff Dervech - July 24, 2019 Dollar General shifts Strategy to draw Wealthier Customers

Dollar General is a retailer that continues to grow! This year D.G. is planned to open nearly 1,000 stores, remodel approx. 1,000 mature stores and relocate approx. 100 existing units. Dollar General has over 750+ stores within the State of Florida. They recently announced that they will expand offerings to include home furnishing, kitchenware, and party supplies to attract wealthier customers. Also, they will look to open produce sections with healthier snacks and private label...

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bar
By: Jeff Dervech - July 22, 2019 Goldman bullish on Big-Box Retailers, citing Deft Management

“New is the new, new”, as commonly quoted by Spencer Levy. Retail is very much alive and is here to stay. Retailers continue to make investments into their operations and strategize for the future in this ever-changing landscape. The main component in all these retailers’ growth plans is finding ways to adapt and evolve their omnichannel presence. Strong market leaders in the retail space, which have done just that, have been Target, Costco, The Home...

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runner
By: Jeff Dervech - July 19, 2019 You Can Now Sweat in Lululemon’s Gear Before Buying It

Lululemon, the athletic apparel retailer, is now offering its consumers the option of trying on clothing and borrowing items to work out in before purchasing. Talk about experimental retail! Lulu has opened a new store in Chicago that includes a traditional retail unit coupled with fitness component of which includes 2 exercise rooms, a meditation area and a café serving smoothies, salads, kombucha, and beer. Lulu is one of many retailers of which are offering...

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Talk Of Interest Rate Cuts Boosts The Stock Market, But Don't Expect A Similar CRE Windfall 20
By: Jeff Dervech - July 17, 2019 Talk Of Interest Rate Cuts Boosts The Stock Market, But Don’t Expect A Similar CRE Windfall

Last week, Jerome Powell, indicated the potential for a future cut to interest rates. If this were to happen, this would be the first time in over 10 years that interest rates were reduced. Many economists believe that a move such as this by the Federal Reserve would have no significant impact on the commercial real estate industry’s growth trajectory. The United States continues to remain in a strong position but does have some concerns,...

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Technology to Count Cars in Retail Parking Lots from Space 21
By: Jeff Dervech - July 12, 2019 Technology to Count Cars in Retail Parking Lots from Space

Technology continues to increase efficiencies and create competitive advantages for investors in the retail industry. Sophisticated investors are using satellites to count cars in parking lots to gain a real-time understanding of traffic attributed to same-store sales growth, an important metric for physical retailers. This technology provides investors with data support of store foot traffic before retailers disclose their quarterly financial results. It can be a basis of indication coupled with other metrics indicating if...

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Renovation Financing for Grocery Anchored, Strip Centers Plentiful 22
By: Jeff Dervech - July 10, 2019 Renovation Financing for Grocery Anchored, Strip Centers Plentiful

Private owners and shopping center investment groups who continue to seek out value are adding retail opportunities, whether that be a grocery-anchored center that needs cosmetic upgrades in order to boost rents and to re-tenant the small shop space or unanchored strip centers with a vacancy that needs to be completely repositioned. Opportunities such as the examples outlined above are being highly sought out after and there is no shortage of banks willing to funds...

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Investors Work to Revive Storied Retail Brands 23
By: Jeff Dervech - July 2, 2019 Investors Work to Revive Storied Retail Brands

Retail brands such as Circuit City, Toy R Us, Bon Ton, and Wet Seal are a few retailers that have gone through the bankruptcy process and are now re-emerging in an effort to find themselves and their new identity. Many of these concepts will look to online platforms to re-engage with customers, but in the world of brick and mortar, they must create some sort of a physical strategy for an experience that cannot be...

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Half of Americans Use Click and Collect 24
By: Jeff Dervech - June 28, 2019 Half of Americans Use Click and Collect

Click and collect is an investment in both physical and digital, with retailers implementing this technology and consumers increasingly using it. According to a recent ICSC survey, 50% of adults use click and collect with as many as 61% using it as frequently as once per month. The retailers that offer this option are seeing an increase in sales and overall happier customers. Technology that makes retail purchasing frictionless is now mandatory as consumers expect...

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Do Mall Owners Anticipate More Consolidation? 25
By: Jeff Dervech - June 25, 2019 Do Mall Owners Anticipate More Consolidation?

The mall landscape has undergone two significant transactions, which finalized in 2018. Brookfield Properties acquired GGP for $15 billion, and Unibail-Rodamco purchased Westfield for $22 billion.The 80% of U.S. malls that are owned by publicly traded REITs with the top 4 malls owners in the US, measured by the total value of their owned or controlled portfolios, are Simon (110 malls, $49 billion), Brookfield (152 malls, $42 billion), Macerich (46 malls, $15.7 billion) and URW...

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Retailers Step Up as More Shoppers Opt to Rent Rather Than Buy 26
By: Jeff Dervech - June 19, 2019 Retailers Step Up as More Shoppers Opt to Rent Rather Than Buy

Renting rather than buying is the last trend in the world of retail, and I do not see this changing. The customer in today’s world is interested in having access to the newest selections, and retailers are stepping up to provide customers with this emerging demand. For instance, Rent the Runway is a women’s online apparel service that provides customers with an option to pay for a monthly subscription to rent, use, and return apparel...

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Smaller Stores Work Better, Abercrombie & Fitch Says 27
By: Jeff Dervech - June 17, 2019 Smaller Stores Work Better, Abercrombie & Fitch Says

Abercrombie and Fitch, a long-standing brand very familiar with millennials mainly through their middle school and high school days, is undergoing change with efforts to evolve to the standards of retail today. How many of you remember going to an A&F store with dark lighting in a large store footprint? The brand has announced plans to open more stores, shutter the non-performing locations, and correctly size their store footprint to maximize efficiency and sales per...

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shopping cart
By: Jeff Dervech - June 12, 2019 WSJ Editor Challenges ‘Retail Apocalypse’ Notion

Brick and Mortar is strong, and retail has transformed and will continue to transform for the foreseeable future. The retailers that incorporate omnichannel into their business model will survive, and the ones that don’t will become extinct. 90% of total retail sales are still completed in stores. Over the last 10 years, overall online retail sales have grown gradually from about 3% in 2007 to about 10% in 2018. People still prefer to buy online,...

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Health & Wellness at RECon: Clinics, Shopping Centers Make for Healthful Relationships 28
By: Jeff Dervech - June 10, 2019 Health & Wellness at RECon: Clinics, Shopping Centers Make for Healthful Relationships

Shopping centers and health care users are a natural fit; both the health care and shopping center industries continues to evolve, and common ground is being found between the two industries more than ever before. Past obstacles such as parking concerns and exclusivity agreements for health care tenants are being approached by landlords with a different mindset than in the past. Landlords value health care tenants for several reasons, including the diversity they can bring...

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Spas Go Mainstream at Retail Centers 29
By: Jeff Dervech - June 4, 2019 Spas Go Mainstream at Retail Centers

With spas continuing to grow at a roaring pace, consumers value health and wellness now more than ever before. This growth has been mainly fueled by a strong economy with individuals having more disposable income. In addition, consumers are placing more value on health and wellness and taking more responsibility for their body and mind. As many would say, people want to live their best life, looking for longevity, striving to be as active as...

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